I saw a curious headline at The Hill late yesterday, which seemed to conflict with everything we already know about the Affordable Care Act. "GAO: Health law will increase deficit if cost-cutting steps stop," it read.
What's this all about? I'll let Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) explain.
For those who can't watch clips online, the Alabama Republican proudly declared yesterday, pointing to the results of a study from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office:
"According to the GAO under a realistic set of assumptions the health care law will increase the deficit by 7/10th percent of GDP or roughly $6.2 trillion over the next 75 years. $6.2 trillion unfunded liability of the United States. In other words, the GAO reveals that the big tax increases in the bill come nowhere close to covering the massive spending."
That seems like a pretty big deal, doesn't it? For several years, literally every independent study of "Obamacare" has shown that the law will save the nation hundreds of billions of dollars. And yet, there was Sessions pointing to a GAO study that suggested the exact opposite. Indeed, the far-right senator boasted, "The results of this report confirm everything critics and Republicans have been saying about the health care bill and reveal the dramatic falsehoods that were used to push it to passage."
How's that possible? As Igor Volsky explained, "The Alabama senator asked the office to estimate what would happen if the cost containment provisions in the law -- the Independent Payment Advisory Board, excise tax on high-cost plans, and reductions in Medicare payments to providers -- are 'phased out over time' while the coverage provisions remain."
This is roughly the equivalent of the Boston Celtics' coach asking someone on his staff, "Figure out what our record would be if our opponents' points didn't count." Then, soon after, the coach called a press conference to declare, "Good news everyone! We're undefeated! And every game was a shutout!"
I'm not blaming the GAO. The agency did as the senator requested, publishing a report using the guidelines he demanded*, but Session's question is inherently ridiculous. It turns out, if we eliminate parts of the law that pay health care reform -- you guessed it -- there's no way to fully pay for health care reform.
By the same logic, Jeff Sessions can prove that my car is an ineffective method of transportation if he takes away its engine and wheels.
The point is, the Affordable Care Act is fully paid for -- and is actually one of the biggest pieces of deficit-reduction legislation in a generation -- precisely because it includes provisions that raise revenue and and contain costs. Sessions' argument seems to be that the costs go up if those elements are eliminated, which is true, but leads to the obvious question of why anyone would do that on purpose.
This is, in other words, one of the dumbest health care arguments to date -- and believe me, there have been a lot of dumb health care arguments. In order to get the word out about such transparent nonsense, Sessions would need willfully ignorant news organizations to run with this without even trying to understand the basics.
Did I mention that Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, National Review and Drudge quickly echoed Sessions' ridiculous claim? Well, they did.
And this is why having credible policy arguments is so very difficult in 2013.
* Update: Republican staffers assure me that Sessions did not demand that the GAO use certain parameters, as had been reported elsewhere. It would appear, in other words, that Sessions simply manipulated the information on his own, without making specific requests to the GAO, in the hopes of misleading the public into believing, falsely, that the Affordable Care Act will increase the deficit. I'm glad we got this straightened out.
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Here's the proof: If we take away electricity the internets will never work!
Thus Proving that Internet is bad for you!!
It is Al Gores fault for inventing it in the first place. Revoke his Nobel Prize!
\sarc
A more profound analogy (which attacks on two fronts) would be: this is like removing all the African-American and Latino votes from the 2012 election and declaring Mitt Romney the winner of the Presidential race.
Careful, you may be giving the Right ideas....
The right already had this idea. That's what Florida, among other states, was all about.
You missed the point, we're not having policy arguments.
That would require some grasp on reality, not to mention a commitment to truth.
Actually Sessions, with this gambit, has added weighty evidence to an important case: ALL Republicaqn legislators are willing to intentionally lie to manipulate a public they do not respect and do fear. Thanks Jeff.
Sessions and his crowd think it utmost appropriate to kick sand in the eyes of all they believe threatens their supply-side perks and privileges! -Kevo
No relation. I swear it.
It's almost tragic that these GOP senators and House reps from the most dirt-poor states do their best to tear down any legislation that might allow their constituents recourse to an improved quality of life. Sessions should be ashamed of himself.
The irony would be funny, if the reality weren't so tragic.
Actually, it is tragic. What's scary is that keeping people poor and stressed-out increases their support for conservative/authoritarian positions.
You mean I am going to have to respond to this crap when my Fox News junky brothers start popping off? Goody.
Thanks for the heads up Steve.
My thoughts exactly. This is going to be all over my Facebook feed for months, I just know it.
Can't win with the truth? Well then, change the truth! <snark>
The sad fact is, that the ACA will bankrupt the country is
already conventional wisdom on the right. Senator Sessions’ flawed GAO study
will only reinforce what the Foxbots already knew.
You missed the point, we're not having policy arguments.
That would require some grasp on reality, not to mention a committment to truth.
My Lakers will will the NBA Title this year... as long as they don't count the regular season games....
See, Jeff, this is why you couldn't be confirmed as a federal judge. Naked partisan mendacity.
Another irony to this: Republicans think they can lower taxes and revenues to historically-low levels, increase military spending, and still provide all of the vital government services for everyone.
"We can balance the budget as long as we don't use math to do it."
It's been awhile, so let me once again apologize for the quality of politician we subject the country to from Alabama
I agree. Misleading people with false or manipulated information does not promote productive discussions. That is why Ms. Maddow was incorrect in saying during last night show that the US deficit has been trending down by hundreds of billions of dollars over the length of the Obama's administration.
It has NOT. She showed a chart expressing the deficit as a share of GDP (which has been trending because of realtive stagnation in the GDP). She did this while making the case the deficit was trending down in REAL dollars ("by hundreds of billions of dollars").
So, I agree with you. This type of rhetoric is not helpful.
Rob: You sure don't seem to mind being wrong. Numbers don't lie, people do...
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/12/14399005-us-budget-deficit-shrinks-by-over-200-billion-reaches-4-year-low?lite
here is the "real money" deficit that MADDOW posted earlier friend. While it's not shrinking everyyear it's still shrinking. And in case you give a damn, the debt/deficit as a share of GDP is what we should concern ourselves with. But even by your standards Obama is NOT growing the deficit, he's doing all he can to shrink the deficit handed by Bush.
Lebowsky, you are correct. Numbers do not lie, people do. Are these numbers truth?
Federal deficit:
2009: 1.412 trillion
2010: 1.293 trillion
2011: 1.299 trillion
2012: 1.326 trillion
Do you see a downward TREND of hundreds of billions of dollars? Here's my source if your numbers are different.
And, tiger, you do need to worry about the "real money" not just the share of GDP because it is the "real money" that adds to the national debt. You linked to an article that was posted in OCT 2012 (incomplete).
Even if we keep the same share or drop in share of GDP we would STILL be adding more and more to the national debt. You do understand that, don't you?
The most accurate way to measure the deficit is by comparing it to the GDP, otherwise it's just numbers in thin air. Only a deficit-obsessed person not see the obvious trend downward IMHO. You are defict-obsessed Rob, so the conservative media machine has done the job on you...
Lebowsky, I don't dispute your comment (well, maybe the obssessed part).
You are correct. It is somewhat akin to comparing one's personal budget short fall to current income. But, if you only look at that and pay no attention to the rising debt you over time will have a DEBT to income problem. But that is less the point I was making.
Ms. Maddow said the deficit had been trending downwards during Obama's administration by hundreds of billions of dollars. That is NOT a deficit to GDP reference, it is a reference to "real dollars" which is simply not the case.
RobDon wrote: "Do you see a downward TREND of hundreds of billions of dollars? Here's my source if your numbers are different."
My numbers are different. I looked at your website, was unable to figure out who the heck they were or where they were getting their data from, and decided to find an actual source from the government - like the US Treasury, for example. Here is my source.
I'll pull in the chart, with a third column I generated myself, using arithmetic, showing the "delta" from the previous year.
We see the stimulus in 2009 (which brought the recession skidding to a halt) and then a year to year decrease, with the exception of an uptick of 47 billion from 9/30/2011 to 9/30/2012.
Too bad those were not calendar year figures. There has to be somewhere on the treasury website where I can extract that info.
pld, great creativity. I consider myself fairly math competent but for some reason I never thought to calculate the deficit by finding the increase in debt. Kudos.
But, for some reason the resulting amount seems to be off. I think the debt numbers are correct, at least as reported by the government. But here is a CBO page that says FY11 deficit was 1.3 billion roughly the same as FY10. That doesn't match your calculations. (I'm sure you know, but for others FY 11 ended 9/30/11, FY10 ended 9/30/10.)
Anyway...thanks for the post...it is making me study (and search for) the numbers a little more closely. I did see I think on a CBO page that the deficit is "approximately" the increase in the debt each year but I don't know why its not exactly.
Over the last 4+ years I have admired the Presidents lack of reaction to far right crap like this obviously slanted report. Unfortunately, I think it is time to react. Without such, people who don't know better or are not willing to investigate, believe this stuff. I think a daily "anti-brief" is called for to rebuke patently false claims. Claims such as "where's the President's plan" from speaker Boehner. It is time!
$6.2 trillion over the next 75 years? Holy cow! That's $62 trillion over 750 years, how are we ever going to pay for that?
That's what I was thinking. 75 years?
It's not just that he cited a report designed to show that the ACA has inherent costs, he added these embellishments:
No, it's completely unrealistic.
It reveals no such thing as it was designed to phase out "the big tax increases."
With the sequester looming doesn't he have anything more important to do, or is it always worthwhile to commission reports based on flawed premises solely to provide conservative talking points for the republican media outlets?
But according to the billionaire corporate media , the dems are suppose to meet the gop 1/2 way on this issue , and help de-fund The ACA , in the name of PARTISANSHIP, other wise the dems will be called obstructionists , just like the GOP
Isn't that how jim crow reined for 100 years also ? maybe they can keep our health-care dysfunctional for another 100 years also? we do not want to offend wall st and their profits too much after all
By 2050, the nation’s racial and ethnic mix will look quite different than it does now. Non-Hispanic whites, who made up 67% of the population in 2005, will be 47% in 2050. Hispanics will rise from 14% of the population in 2005 to 29%
So based on reasonable assumptions that the Republicans will never gain votes from ethnic minorities, there will be no Republicans in office within the next couple of decades, therefore they should all be removed from office now and let the Democrats run the country for ever.
The fact is that the GOP story line can't survive without shifting to some other-world plane of reality - the one that the party of stupid likes to live in. So now they have a story that FOX will run all over the air with for weeks if not months.
If it is 'illegal to lie to Congress,' is it also illegal for a Congressman to lie? There appear to be no disincentives to blatant lies.
You missed the point, we're not having policy arguments.
That would require some grasp on reality, not to mention a committment to truth.