Morning Bell: Reality Begins Bursting Health Care Hype

Conn Carroll / June 16, 2009

Yesterday the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a preliminary analysis of the Kennedy-Dodd health care plan, and the results were truly frightening. Assessing just Title I of the draft legislation, CBO estimated the plan would add $1 trillion to the federal deficit while only extending health insurance to a net 16 million more Americans. As scary as that is, what is even more disturbing is what costs the CBO did not estimate: “The proposal does not include a ‘public plan’ that would be offered in the exchanges, nor does it contain provisions that would require employers to offer health insurance benefits or impose a fee or tax on them if they did not offer insurance coverage to their workers.”

Even without the public plan, the CBO analysis undercuts one of the fundamental promises President Barack Obama has repeatedly made about health care reform. Speaking to the American Medical Association yesterday, President Obama promised: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.” The CBO disagrees. According to their analysis, while the Kennedy-Dodd bill would enable 39 million Americans to obtain health insurance, the plan would kick about 15 million people out of the system because their employers would no longer offer insurance, and coverage from other sources would decline by 8 million. These numbers will only look worse once a public plan is factored in. And the public plan is just one of the biggest problems in the Kennedy-Dodd bill: (more…)