Health Care

Repealing 'Obamacare' Would Explode Debt, Says Government Auditor

Brian Beutler | April 3, 2012, 6:05AM

A new report by an independent government auditor concludes that implementing President Obama's health care law as intended will make a significant dent in the long-term debt forecast.

The report comes as Supreme Court justices weigh striking some of "Obamacare's" central provisions -- and perhaps the law in its entirety -- and as the Republican Party remains committed to repealing the law if it seizes control of government in November.

"[I]f the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is implemented as intended it would have a major effect on the [fiscal] gap but would not eliminate it," the Government Accountability Office wrote in a Monday report -- a conclusion in line with its own past research and similar research conducted by other government and non-government analysts.

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Health Care

CHART OF THE DAY: Repealing ObamaCare Would Be Disastrous For The Budget

Brian Beutler | October 24, 2011, 2:37PM

President Barack Obama

The Government Accountability Office has updated its fiscal outlook for the U.S. government and come to some familiar conclusions. The country has a long term imbalance that will have to be addressed, but not until today's economic woes have passed. If Congress simply does nothing -- and allows the Bush tax cuts, and other temporary laws to expire -- the country's fiscal health will improve significantly over the long term.

But the report implies something that's been lost in the recent partisan debate over the country's future: repealing ObamaCare would consign us to swift, ugly fiscal and health care crises.

The health care reform law will extend subsidized private health insurance to millions of Americans, paid for with new taxes and Medicare savings. But it also included numerous demonstration projects and reforms intended to rein in the growth of health care costs, and thus Medicare spending. Some of them have great promise -- if they can survive.

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Debt Ceiling

The Debt Ceiling: Why Do We Even Have This Thing?

Kyle Leighton | July 26, 2011, 11:50AM

As nearly every news cycle over the last few weeks has been dominated by how much the U.S. government owes, who we owe it to, and what could potentially happen if we don't figure out a way to raise the debt ceiling, there is a simple question: why do we even have this thing?

Simple. Congress wanted checks and balances to the checks and balances.

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Health Care

Waivergate: Will This Nothingburger Conspiracy Theory Finally Go Away?

Brian Beutler | June 21, 2011, 10:34AM

Sec. of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

It's the conservative conspiracy theory that wouldn't go away. For months Republicans and conservative foes of the new health care law have raised warning flags about its "waiver" process. The legislation gives the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to issue waivers to providers with the goal of implementing the full law in 2014 as smoothly as possible. In particular, providers of group health insurance -- including businesses and labor unions -- have been exempted from new rules requiring health care plans to cover $750,000 in costs per year.

This, suspicious Republicans believed, was a recipe for cronyism. Without data detailing who got the waivers and who did not, they alleged that the waivers were part of scheme to reward administration allies and punish administration enemies with no oversight.

But that all changed when Congress tasked the Government Accountability Office with auditing the waiver program as part of spending legislation President Obama signed in the spring to avoid a government shutdown. That report was released earlier this month and the results were...quite unexceptional.

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