Coverage is expanded under the new law through two mechanisms, both of which will be administered at the state level: an expansion of state Medicaid programs and the construction of transparent marketplaces (health insurance exchanges) for individual private coverage.
State governments currently administer health insurance programs and markets, just as they will continue to do under the new law. So it stands to reason that if you wanted a picture of what the future holds under this law, you'd look at how things function presently. Which is why I provided you with that link ("Medicaid Administrative Costs (MACs) are among the lowest of any health care payer in the country. MACs are significantly less than private health insurance plans; typically in the range of four to six percent of claims paid").
Making irrelevant points about the census is the deflection.
Oops...forgot to welcome you to the board. Hope you enjoy your stay.
Thank you.
Your example didn't offer any projections about census costs so I don't see how that could have been your intent. But the "apples" I referred to are state administrative costs for health programs.
Would you like to argue that point re: Obamacare?
Do you think it will come in as projected?
Do you think that the President thought it would?
I can't say. It's the best projection we have, which is why it's used in the first place. The last entitlement expansion (Medicare Part D) was less expensive than forecast; others, I'm sure, have run high.
However, if your focus is on administrative costs, no I don't think those will play much role in altering the forecast.
Do you think the left used an honest approach, i.e. said all they wanted was control of another sixth of the economy?
What a disingenuous question. No one has claimed to want "control of another sixth of the economy," nor has anything that wasn't already regulated become regulated. Health insurance markets are already regulated (at the state level), meaning if regulation itself constitutes "control" of that sector of the economy, it's been controlled for over 60 years; this law has changed nothing in that respect.
I love fantasies...can I play too?
The direct question is: will Obamacare come in as projected, or will it break the bank?
If you'd rather not answer, just name three or four other government programs that came in as projected.
Now, I read your link, and have an answer to it:
"In fact, every federal social program has cost far more than originally predicted. For instance, in 1967 the House Ways and Means Committee predicted that Medicare would cost $12 billion in 1990, a staggering $95 billion underestimate. Medicare first exceeded $12 billion in 1975. In 1965 federal actuaries figured the Medicare hospital program would end up running $9 billion in 1990. The cost was more than $66 billion.
In 1987 Congress estimated that the Medicaid Special Hospitals Subsidy would hit $100 million in 1992. The actual bill came to $11 billion. The initial costs of Medicare's kidney-dialysis program, passed in 1972, were more than twice projected levels.
The Congressional Budget Office doubled the estimated cost of Medicare's catastrophic insurance benefit — subsequently repealed — from $5.7 billion to $11.8 billion annually within the first year of its passage. The agency increased the projected cost of the skilled nursing benefit an astonishing sevenfold over roughly the same time frame, from $2.1 billion to $13.5 billion. And in 1935 a naive Congress predicted $3.5 billion in Social Security outlays in 1980, one-thirtieth the actual level of $105 billion. "
Doug Bandow on Medicare on National Review Online
"First, consider the original projections for the 1965 Medicare Bill, and the actual costs were nine times the estimates.
Next, "The price tag for this legislation is a whopping $1.04 trillion to $1.6 trillion (Congressional Budget Office estimates). "
Defend Your Health Care
Our own history should offer caveats about increasing government involvement in health care. As Michael Tanner of the libertarian-oriented Cato Institute has pointed out, when Medicare began in 1965 it was estimated that the annual cost of Medicare Part A would be $9 billion by 1990. It turned out to be $67 billion. "In 1987," Tanner writes, "Medicaid's special hospitals subsidy was projected to cost $100 million annually just five years later; it actually cost $11 billion, more than 100 times as much. And in 1988, when Medicare's home care benefit was established, the projected cost for 1993 was $4 billion, but the actual cost was $10 billion."
Economic theory and practice suggest that improving access to health care and moderating the costs can best be achieved not through centralized control but through competition. But how do we get there from here? It depends on how far you want to go.
Alan Bock: Getting untangled | insurance, health, people - Opinion - The Orange County Register
And my fav, the 'Big Dig' in Boston...
"The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the U.S.[2] Although the project was estimated in 1985 at $2.8 billion (in 1982 dollars, US$6.0 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2006[update]),[3] over $14.6 billion ($8.08 billion in 1982 dollars)[3] had been spent in federal and state tax dollars as of 2006[update].[4] A July 17, 2008 article in The Boston Globe stated, "In all, the project will cost an additional $7 billion in interest, bringing the total to a staggering $22 billion, according to a Globe review of hundreds of pages of state documents. It will not be paid off until 2038."
Big Dig - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So, it seems that policrats either have kick-backs in mind, or some other reason.
What, pray tell, was the real reason for Obamacare if not to save money?
Not control of healthcare, to socialize medicine...
Spill it....what do you know that no one else does, Greenie?
