White House: Obamacare Saves Money, Not Open to Negotiation

Today, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney blithely announced that Obamacare shouldn’t be on the table for deficit reduction because “the Affordable Care Act reduces the deficit considerably.”

Unfortunately, as Philip Klein reports, that just isn’t true. In order to reach the conclusion that Obamacare saves money over the next decade, the CBO had to assume tax increases as well as ignoring the so-called doc fix and double-counting Medicare cuts. And certain provisions of the bill are more costly than others.

Chuck Blahous, the man appointed trustee of Social Security and Medicare by President Obama, says that the deficit will increase a full $346 billion thanks to Obamacare from now until 2021. That’s his optimistic estimate. His more cynical estimate has Obamacare increasing the deficit by $527 billion over the same period. By all accounts, expansion of Medicaid and subsidies to individuals will cost no less than $1.7 trillion over the next decade.