CBO's Track Record - How Accurate are the Health Care Numbers? Posted by Kevin Barber — March 25, 2010 @ 10:47PM
Now we've heard a hundred times that the non partison CBO office has done the numbers for health care, proving once and for all that the bill costs $1Trillion and will reduce the deficit 100 billion over 10 years.
Nevermind that this is 10 years of taxes for 5-6 years of coverage... I just want to see how the CBO has done on previous estimates.
Enjoy the wonders of government accounting:
2002 BUDGET DEFICIT:
ESTIMATED: $21 BILLION /// ACTUAL: $158 BILLION
JANUARY 2007 C.B.O. ECONOMIC FORCAST:
GDP WILL GROW in 2008 BY 3%, AND 2009 BY 2.9% BASED ON HOUSING MARKET IMPROVEMENTS AND GAS PRICES STABLE.... WE ALL KNOW HOW THAT TURNED OUT.
MEDICARE 1990
ESTIMATED: $12 BILLION /// ACTUAL: $167 BILLION
MEDICAID DSH PROGRAM 1992
ESTIMATED: $1 BILLION ACTUAL: $17 BILLION
MEDICARE HOME CARE 1993
ESTIMATED: $4 BILLION /// ACTUAL: $10 BILLION
Social Security Budget (yes, the CBO tracks this too)
Social Security will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes this year, the first big milestone on the road to its eventual insolvency.
This plunge into the red comes 6 years faster than the most recent CBO estimate predicted (It had been 2016).
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/business/economy/25social.html?hp
The way I work the math, the CBO has regularly been 2.5x to 17x low in its estimates. Does anyone really think this bill is going to lower insurance costs, increase quality of care, cover 30 million new people (many for free), add 17,000 IRS agents to enforce the new mandates, and vastly enlarge the already enormous federal bureacracy, and it has any prayer of being on budget? If so, I have a few investment ideas I'd like to tell you about... it's right up your alley.
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