Monday
Nov022009
Former CBO Director: House Health Care Bill Will Add To Deficit
Monday, November 2, 2009 at 3:53PM
By Leah Valencia - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service
Former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin said Monday that the House health care legislation is not deficit neutral and will not be fiscally sustainable over time.
“The heart of this bill is to repeat two of the greatest policy errors this country has made: To create large unfunded entitlement spending programs and to have a tax law that is not politically viable over the long haul,” said Holtz-Eakin.
Holtz-Eakin said the bill is on track to produce over one trillion dollars of debt in the first ten years. He argued that Democrats are using gimmicks to balance the bill in the eyes of the Congressional Budget Office.
“The best we could do with the health care reform is break even,” said Holtz-Eakin “Genuinely be honest about how much new spending they are proposing and genuinely be honest about raising the revenue to cover it. [Democrats] are doing neither of those things.”
He said the actual gross cost to expand Medicaid would be $1.055 trillion, and other spending provisions in the bill would add up to a gross figure of $230 billion, totaling well over the $900 billion promised by House leaders.
“I think as a result, that these are reforms that are not durable in any deep sense and are not desirable from the point of view of policy.”
Former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin said Monday that the House health care legislation is not deficit neutral and will not be fiscally sustainable over time.
“The heart of this bill is to repeat two of the greatest policy errors this country has made: To create large unfunded entitlement spending programs and to have a tax law that is not politically viable over the long haul,” said Holtz-Eakin.
Holtz-Eakin said the bill is on track to produce over one trillion dollars of debt in the first ten years. He argued that Democrats are using gimmicks to balance the bill in the eyes of the Congressional Budget Office.
“The best we could do with the health care reform is break even,” said Holtz-Eakin “Genuinely be honest about how much new spending they are proposing and genuinely be honest about raising the revenue to cover it. [Democrats] are doing neither of those things.”
He said the actual gross cost to expand Medicaid would be $1.055 trillion, and other spending provisions in the bill would add up to a gross figure of $230 billion, totaling well over the $900 billion promised by House leaders.
“I think as a result, that these are reforms that are not durable in any deep sense and are not desirable from the point of view of policy.”
Pro-Choice Religious Leaders Denounce Stupak Amendment
Leaders of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice urged U.S. Senators Monday to remove language from the final health care reform bill that restricts federal funding for abortion.
“Health care reform that attacks the rights of more than half of the population by subjecting some of their most basic and intimate decisions to a large and powerful church’s governing body is not reform at all,” said Barry Lynn, Executive Director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, during a morning press conference hosted by the National Press Club.
While the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, an organization with members from a variety of religious backgrounds, advocated women's reproductive rights, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pushed House leaders to amend their bill to prohibit abortion coverage.
The Stupak-Pitts amendment, included in the House bill, restricts abortion coverage in a government-run insurance plan as well as in private plans funded by government subsidies.
“How surprising and appalling to see that a provision designed to curtail women’s right to abortion was slipped into the health care bill at the behest of a powerful religious group, a provision that reflects the doctrine of that group,” Lynn said.
President Barack Obama has remarked that he does not believe health care reform should change the “status quo” in regards to abortion. However, many moderate Senate Democrats say they will urge firm restrictions on abortion funding in the final health care bill.
Obama has not commented as to whether he will sign a bill with language that prohibits abortion funding.