Morning Bell: Obamacare Is A Deficit Hawk’s Worst Nightmare

Conn Carroll / August 11, 2009

President Barack Obama will host the first of three health care townhalls at 1 PM in Portsmouth, N.H. today, with follow up sessions in Bozeman, Montana on Friday and Grand Junction, Colorado on Saturday. Close followers of the health care debate might not recognize the pitch President Obama will make this afternoon. Gone are any promises that Obamacare will be “deficit neutral”, or reduce medical costs by cutting waste, or of “bending the cost curve” through a Trojan Horse public option.

Instead, Obama has shrunk his sales pitch to three specific problems: ending the practice of denying insurance coverage to people with a pre-existing illness; keeping people from losing their coverage if they get sick; and protecting Americans who face high out-of-pocket medical costs. These are all great goals, but they have very little to do with what is actually in the legislation before Congress.

This is why New Hampshire is such an opportune place for Obama to host the first of his health care townhalls since Granite Staters have a long tradition of fiscal responsibility. In this morning’s USA Today experts predict that estimates from both the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the White House due later this month will produce a fiscal year 2009 deficit of $1.8 trillion at a time when President Obama is seeking to add a new health care entitlement that will cost $1 trillion in just its first ten years. Earlier this year, President Obama tried to bring some semblance of fiscal responsibility into his administration by recruiting Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) to be his Secretary of Commerce. But it quickly became apparent to Gregg that his fiscally responsible values conflicted with Obama’s policies. Commenting on Obama’s budget a few short months later Gregg wrote: (more…)