Posted on 03/20/2010 12:35:32 PM PDT by SeattleBruce
Even the Administration’s Chief Actuary at HHS cannot provide cost analysis of latest Democrat health spending bill before the vote
Chief Actuary: ‘I regret that my staff and I will not be able to prepare our analysis within this very tight time frame, due to the complexity of the legislation.’
WASHINGTON, DC – The Obama administration’s chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) notified Republican leaders Saturday that the “very tight time frame” and “complexity” of the Democrats’ health spending bill would prevent them from fully analyzing the costs and efficacy of the bill before the House voted on the legislation. The letter was in response to a request from House and Senate Republicans.
The Chief Actuary, Richard S. Foster, wrote: “In your letter, you requested that we provide the updated actuarial estimates in time for your review prior to the expected House debate and vote on this legislation on March 21,2010. I regret that my staff and I will not be able to prepare our analysis within this very tight time frame, due to the complexity of the legislation.”
Foster and his staff analyzed the Senate-passed bill and determined that it bent the cost curve up, estimating in a January 8 report that national health expenditures would increase by an estimated total of $222 billion, and that the additional demand for health services “could be difficult to meet” and “could lead to price increases, cost-shifting, and/or changes in providers’ willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage.” Foster, in his letter today, expects the new health spending bill to be “generally similar.”
(Excerpt) Read more at republican.senate.gov ...
These MORONS...
Likw wishing on a star.
I suppose that means the either can’t vote on it. Or even if they don’t it means nothing until this report comes in.
Like wishing on a star.
Are they going to pass legislation BEFORE ANYONE HAS AN IDEA WHAT IT WILL DO AND REALISTICALLY COST SOCIETY?
WTF?!
This is only escalating into far more than tar and feathers territory. WAY past far.
They will vote for this boondoggle anyway.
These phony numbers don’t mean anything anyway. If they pass this monstrosity, “amnesty” will be the next thing the commie ‘RATS ram down our throats with their procedural tricks. Can you say 20 to 30 million more “participants”? That’s before the amnestized illegals bring their “extended” families here.
They keep this up and they will alienate just about everyone in the whole country, except those few nut jobs out in hollywood and scattered here and there.
“Chief Actuary: ‘I regret that my staff and I will not be able to prepare our analysis within this very tight time frame, due to the complexity of the legislation.’ “
“Chief Actuary: ‘I regret that my staff and I will not be able to prepare our analysis within this very tight time frame, due to the complexity of the S C A M “
There......fixed it..’
“Can you say 20 to 30 million more “participants”?”
Or even 5 million under Sen. Lindsey Graham cracker’s plan...?
This may be cover for Hairy Read and La La Pelosi and Obogus in case they don’t get the votes.
What a shock, huh!
The gang who couldn’t shoot straight
In Tel Aviv there are smiles.Those SOB’s don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground they say.
“In Tel Aviv there are smiles.Those SOB’s don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground they say.”
That’s for sure.
Yes.
On Cavuto the speed reader who read it all said he couldn’t understand most of it because it was all references to page and paragraph numbers in the senate bill.Some times it referenced to two or three different paragraphs buried in the 2000 page senate bill.
Although he read the senate bill, he could not remember every single verse by number
Well hell, we don't really need to know that, do we?
I didn't need a team of actuaries to tell me that increasing demand by 30 million, while increasing supply by "0", will make meeting that increased demand an impossibility.
And, I also know that whatever budget scoring on either bill exists, and whomever it was that did it, won't matter an iota with respect to the actual costs. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, anyone?
From Wiki on the difference between the projected cost of MMA compared to the actual, quoting 2009 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARDS OF TRUSTEES OF THE FEDERAL HOSPITAL INSURANCE AND FEDERAL SUPPLEMENTARY MEDICAL INSURANCE TRUST FUNDS, Table III.C19.—Operations of the Part D Account in the SMI Trust Fund (Cash Basis) during Calendar Years 2004-2018, Page 120...
"Initially, the net cost of the program was projected at $400 billion for the ten-year period between 2004 and 2013. One month after passage, the administration estimated that the net cost of the program over the period between 2006 (the first year the program started paying benefits) and 2015 would be $534 billion.[17] As of February 2009, the projected net cost of the program over the 2006 to 2015 period was $549.2 billion.
I know the scoring doesn't matter. The Congress knows the scoring doesn't matter, and Obama knows the scoring doesn't matter. I'm not going to get too worked up over the fact the scoring isn't done.
"...and the fact that my boss told me I would be wearing cement shoes on Monday if I had my staff work overtime and perform the analysis before the vote. In fact, I will now never have to score the bill at all. Whew! I dodged a bullet."
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