Obamacare has increased enrollment in its health care exchanges to more than 11 million, and the conservative response to the law’s demonstrable success at carrying out its goals has been fascinating to behold. Measured by volume, the right-wing backlash has diminished severely, as great roaring waves of furious anger have given way to irregular ripples of discontent. But measured by its content, very little has changed. Conservatives are talking much less than they used to about Obamacare, but they are saying more or less the same things, treating the law as a costly and obvious failure. What’s most striking is how oblivious most of them remain not only to measures of the law’s success, but even to the broad parameters of its objectives.
To take a typical example, here is Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, making his case, such as it is, that Obamacare has failed to meet its cost targets. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Moore’s column is the fact that, five years after its passage, the chief economist of the most influential conservative think tank in the United States lacks even a passing familiarity with its fiscal objectives.
Obamacare has two fiscal goals. The first is to pay for its expanded coverage with a combination of spending cuts and higher taxes, so that the net effect is to reduce the deficit. The second, and more ambitious, goal is to change the incentives of the health-care system to gradually bring down health-care inflation (a goal health-care wonks have called “bending the curve”). Moore’s column, which I am excerpting in its entirety, makes clear he does not understand either target. Moore begins by defining Obamacare’s goal as reducing the deficit:
A new Congressional Budget Office report has blown the lid off the Obama whopper fib.
Keep in mind what Moore is claiming here. Obama promised that the ACA would reduce the deficit, and according to Moore, the Congressional Budget Office has a new report showing this promise was false. If true, this would be enormous news. In fact, no such finding exists. CBO originally estimated that Obamacare would reduce the deficit. It correspondingly estimated for the next several years that repealing the law would increase the deficit. CBO stopped issuing cost estimates of the overall law. It did, however,report that its estimate of the law’s gross costs — the spending on coverage — has been falling, rather than rising. Indeed, the federal government is now projected to spend less on health care than it was projected to spend before Obamacare was passed:
Much More: Obamacare-Hater Can't Find Single True Fact -- NYMag
Stephen Moore has always struck me as someone who fudges facts. This seems to be another example.
To take a typical example, here is Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, making his case, such as it is, that Obamacare has failed to meet its cost targets. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Moore’s column is the fact that, five years after its passage, the chief economist of the most influential conservative think tank in the United States lacks even a passing familiarity with its fiscal objectives.
Obamacare has two fiscal goals. The first is to pay for its expanded coverage with a combination of spending cuts and higher taxes, so that the net effect is to reduce the deficit. The second, and more ambitious, goal is to change the incentives of the health-care system to gradually bring down health-care inflation (a goal health-care wonks have called “bending the curve”). Moore’s column, which I am excerpting in its entirety, makes clear he does not understand either target. Moore begins by defining Obamacare’s goal as reducing the deficit:
If there were a contest for the biggest lie in Washington over the past 30 years, it would be hard to compete with President Obama's boast that he would put 30 million more Americans on Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies, and this would reduce the budget deficit. That's got to be right up there with President Clinton declaring, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."
A new Congressional Budget Office report has blown the lid off the Obama whopper fib.
Keep in mind what Moore is claiming here. Obama promised that the ACA would reduce the deficit, and according to Moore, the Congressional Budget Office has a new report showing this promise was false. If true, this would be enormous news. In fact, no such finding exists. CBO originally estimated that Obamacare would reduce the deficit. It correspondingly estimated for the next several years that repealing the law would increase the deficit. CBO stopped issuing cost estimates of the overall law. It did, however,report that its estimate of the law’s gross costs — the spending on coverage — has been falling, rather than rising. Indeed, the federal government is now projected to spend less on health care than it was projected to spend before Obamacare was passed:
Much More: Obamacare-Hater Can't Find Single True Fact -- NYMag
Stephen Moore has always struck me as someone who fudges facts. This seems to be another example.
