Hey, how about spending another $1.5 trillion?
Oh, you know this will end up being a lowball figure:
Health policy experts say guaranteeing coverage for all Americans may cost about $1.5 trillion over the next decade. That would be more than double the $634 billion ‘down payment’ President Barack Obama set aside for health reform in his budget.
About 48 million people are uninsured, and the problem is only expected to get worse because the cost of coverage keeps rising.Still, administration officials have pointedly avoided providing a ballpark estimate for Obama’s fix, saying it depends on details to be worked out with Congress.
“It’s impossible to put a price tag on the plan before even the basics have been finalized,” said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin. “Here’s what we do know: The reserve fund in the president’s budget is fully paid for and provides a substantial down payment on the cost of the reforming our health care system.”
The potential for runaway costs is raising concerns among Republicans and some Democrats as Congress prepares to draft next year’s budget.
As with the Crap Sandwich and every subsequent massive spending plan, the number-crunchers are simply pulling numbers from their you-know-wheres:
John Sheils, a senior vice president of the Lewin Group, said about $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion would be a credible estimate for a plan that commits the nation to covering all its citizens. That would amount to around 4 percent of projected health care costs over the next 10 years, he added.
The cost of covering the uninsured is “a difficult hurdle to get over,” Sheils said in an interview.
“I don’t know where the rest of the money is going to come from,” he added.Some of the leading advocates of coverage for all use cost estimates around $1.5 trillion.
“Honestly … we can’t do it for the $634 billion the president put in the reserve fund,” John Rother, public policy director for AARP, told an insurance industry meeting in Washington last week.
“In all likelihood, it will be over $1 trillion,” he added, citing his own estimate of $1.5 trillion.
But hey, if the White House puts Michelle Obama in charge of a nationwide patient-dumping scheme, they may be able to save a few million give or take.
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Moron. Same place all government money comes from.
Well said MarcoPolo.
Maybe the extra money will come from not paying for injured veterans.
What’s this world coming to?
The first 60 days….
or
Welcome to Hotel He!!.
One of the ugly truths about government is that programs (other than public works programs like building roads) rarely stop or even slow down just because they are out of money.
Budgets are mere starting points and overruns are never tracked at all
adequately. This means that even then $1.7 trillion estimate is likely very low.
So they are going to try to spend 1.7 trillion dollars and have no idea where to get said 1.7 trillion dollars.
WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER.
We need to change the name of the Obama administration to the Oz administration. Same people are in charge, it seems, as in the land of Oz. And I’m NOT talking about Australia.
About 7 million illegals are part of the 48 million “uninsured” (that is a rough estimate) and some of those uninsured are young people who are betting on not needing insurance for a while (no estimates on that number but I’d say it’s high). The government will put all of the 48 million (it will turn into 120 million over night) onto their health care plan and 1.5 trillion won’t come close to covering it.
LOL. Drafting a budget? That is a farce. Nobody in our government has any intention of staying on budget. Where was all this bailout bs and these stimulus shell games in last year’s budget?
What el dumbo and his room full of yes men don’t get is that the second he signs in universal healthcare, every insurance company in the country will be droped. He will not be covering 48 million, he will be covering 360 million. And hundreds of thousands of people working for insurance companies will lose thier jobs.
Or maybe they do know that and just don’t care.
The numbers are so large, they wouldn’t fit there. I suspect they are pulling them from an alternate universe where the rules of math are different.
Free medical for illegals. Now that’s a disincentive to move here.
Nothing about U.S. citizens and, what the heck we killed off E-verify. Change you better believe in.
This is an outrageous lie, & no one with even the slightest insight will buy it. As a nation, we already spend 2 trillion/year, & look at the crap standards & “health care” we have.
Even tho’ this is a deliberate ruse, the only way to cover everyone is draconian cuts, & good luck to all. What kind of qualified doctor will submit to working under the half-a$$ed standards that are obviously to come? Certainly not anyone trained in the West. Of course, as long as there are provisions for people to go out of the system & pay for their own care, there is some hope. My concern is that the socialists will demand everyone adhere to their plan. Can you imagine a society where you can only get real health care on the black market?
Patient dumping – isn’t that was Obama plans to do to wounded Veterans?
Don’t remind me.
gggrrrrrrr
This is why we are so screwed. On one hand we are told that universal coverage will lower costs and save us money. Then we are told about the enormous costs of reforming system with numbers so large they aren’t even comprehensible except in term of: is that more or less than the stimulus package? Then 70% of the public swallow both statements whole and return to watching American Idol.
The imaginary cost reductions by covering everybody or preventive care fall apart on the slightest analysis yet nobody is ever called out on it. I imagine that if Obama’s teleprompter claimed we could reduce costs to zero if we covered every single person on the planet but it would cost $100 trillion dollars now and even more in the future about half the country would think that sound like a wonderful idea – and he is so smart too.
Time to hack that teleprompter…
And when that runs out, you’ll have to get your aspirin on the black (no racism intended) market! Look on the bright side, abortion doctors may find it more profitable to do back alley appendectomies, and switch their primary practice.
$1,700,000,000,000,000.00
We could colonize mars for that much.
In fact, sign me up because its going to hell here.
In Obama Fantasyland, the money will come from a magic Unicorn who we’ll call “Rusty” who farts out gold doubloons.
Obama’s newly-created Office of Executive Beefarino will provide a taxpayer-subsidized steady diet of the canned concoction for Rusty the Golden Flated Unicorn, thus enabling our Messianic Leader to pay for healthcare for all!
Huzzah!
Except for wounded veterans. They’re on their own.
Todays Teleprompt follies!
Just look at what government control has done for our economy. Banks, insurance, auto-industry. Any time the government steps up to the plate, the citizens strike out. Health care, was this not part of Johnson’s ‘Great Society’, did not the Johnson admin raid Social Security, Carter and Clinton the ‘Community Reinvestment Act’. Who had the final say so on the Paulson ‘Bail Out’. We have a bunch of dumbos running the show, who do not even bother to read a contract before passing it into law. Good grief!
Maybe he’s sees the government as a business for his own profit and this is all about market share. The more I think about it, the more that make sense in an Obama world.
And sonofdy. Thank you for your service. [salute]
I don’t think that can be said too often.
anybody thinks its just going to be 1.5 trillion or so is smoking funny things, as kid rock would say. with the HUGE INFLUX of illegals coming here for free medical care we’ll be bankrupt soon…oh we already are, nevermind…
just keep yourself healthy, and don’t get sick…cause you won’t get much care…take an aspirin for that cancer pain..and don’t call us, we’ll call you.
if you’re getting older, and aren’t we all, you can bet you’ll be just a ‘useless eater’…
Thanks, but thank my 3 guys hurt in Iraq not me.
I do it because I enjoy it, not for thanks. Give the medals and awards to my guys. I don’t need them. No offense intended, just the way I feel.
Weed will soon be legal, so no worries there.
Of course he’ll make a profit. It’s only right that the savior of all should receive some token for his efforts. (What’s 1% of a couple trillion $$ between friends?)
That’s not why he does it. He’s trying to remake the country into something worthy to call his own.
People, PEOPLE! You just don’t get it. He just reduced the deficit another 50% by cutting the cost from $3 trillion.
SHEESH
sonofdy said:
None at all taken. You’re all in our thoughts and prayers. You just happen to be hanging around here.
well since the country is going UP IN SMOKE anyway…
we can just start a new ponzi scheme like medicare/medicaid or social security. the young healthy americans pay 5k per year granny and juanita tax which wil cover all the old and illegal who aren’t old enough or illegal enough to qualify for medicare/medicaid yet. then 20 years from now we can all be surprised when the fund needs more funds. see, i could be a democrat president. it doesn’t take a genious like bill or barack.
Welcome to FantasyLand!!!
A friendly place where everyone gets what they want…free healthcare…no global warming…large bailouts…no mortgage problems. That’s right, folks! Watch as all your troubles melt away.
No more pain and suffering. Unicorns and dodo birds thrive in a lush natural environment. No one ever need worry, except those who will pay for it.
(cue music, in key of C…) Obama loves me this I know, because the Teleprompter tells me so…
I’m gonna get me some free botox, smooth out these laugh lines I got from giggling at this administration.
Beats crying.
Has anyone pointed out to the Congresscritters and other politicians (spit!) that we didn’t have a “Healthcare Crisis” or “skyrocketing health costs” until the government got involved. The reporting requirements are onerous and so staggering that doctors who accept Medicare and Medicaid have to hire several people just to do the paperwork and send in the reports and to ensure compliance with every little tweak of the “system.” Back in the “olden days,” doctors took care of patients whether they could pay or not. They could afford to do this because our goverment wasn’t involved! The Great Society started this crap and it’s been gaining momentum ever since.
Someone ought to run a projection of what health care would cost absent costs directly associated with Medicaid/Medicare.
Hope is not a plan; not all change is good. The resistance is here; the resistance is now. RESIST!!!!!!
ECS
The cost of coverage keeps rising because there has been no tort reform and government keeps sticking its paws into healthcare at all levels… HIPAA; Forcing insurance companies to cover this or that ailment, this or that drug/treatment, etc. Add taxing healthcare benefits to the list – it’s coming soon from a paycheck near you.
Keep in mind that Obama’s Communist Global Poverty Act is coming, too, and carries an estimated price tag of $845 billion.