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Tracking Obama's health law in budget isn't easy (Surprise, surprise, surprise)
AP ^ | 4/11/13 | RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

Posted on 04/11/2013 4:03:08 AM PDT by markomalley

Next year is the year President Barack Obama's signature health care law goes into high gear, covering millions of uninsured Americans by a mix of private plans and government programs infused with tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money.

You'd think there'd be a chapter in the new 2014 budget that lays it all out. Wrong.

Well, maybe a table? Wrong again.

A box? Nope.

It turns out that the costs of the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare to its unyielding Republican foes— are sprinkled here and there through hundreds of pages of budget books. It's partly due to the arcane ways of government budgeting. It may also be an effort to avoid giving foes more of a target.

"I'm sure somebody has a spreadsheet somewhere, but clearly they are not publishing it in this budget," said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. "There is a political aspect to this and there is literally a green-eyeshade part. Once you have adopted a policy it's difficult to just pull it out."

Even some of the major spending in the new law isn't easy to find. Starting Jan. 1, people who don't have health insurance through their jobs will be able to get coverage in two main ways. Low-income people will be eligible for an expanded Medicaid program, provided their state government accepts. Uninsured middle-class people in every state will eligible for subsidized private plans through new state health insurance marketplaces that go live online this fall.

So how much will the new coverage cost the government? Hard to tell.

(snip)

But how much? Department officials said Wednesday they can't really tell.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: 0carebudget; 0carelaws; 0careregulations; obamabudget; obamacare

A surprising random act of journalism here.

No FReeper should be surprised by this.

1 posted on 04/11/2013 4:03:08 AM PDT by markomalley
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To: markomalley

But how much? Department officials said Wednesday they can’t really tell.

Can’t wait to hear the louse from Frisco tell us “We need to pass it so we can see what is in it”


2 posted on 04/11/2013 4:12:38 AM PDT by Cyclone59 (Obama is like Ron Burgundy - he will read ANYTHING that is on the teleprompter)
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To: Cyclone59

It’ll be more like “Ha! You passed it, and you STILL can’t find it (in the budget)!”


3 posted on 04/11/2013 4:19:15 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: ProtectOurFreedom; Cyclone59

“It’ll be more like “Ha! You passed it, and you STILL can’t find it (in the budget)!””

I just went through about 1/3 of the bill and tried to identify all of the amendments. I didn’t read the whole thing, but just looked at the text of the bill in Thomas....copied and pasted headers for sections identified with single quotes around them (there may be others in there).

I forgot how much of a mess that bill was.

Here’s what I got (and like I said, it’s only about 1/3 of the way down):

QUOTE

Part A of title XXVII of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg et seq.)

Part A of title XXVII of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg et seq.), as amended by section 1001, is further amended

Subpart C of part IV of subchapter A of chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (relating to refundable credits) is amended by inserting after section 36A the following new section:

Subtitle D of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by adding at the end the following new chapter:

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 is amended by inserting after section 18 (29 U.S.C. 218) the following:

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 is amended by inserting after section 18A (as added by section 1513) the following:

Chapter 43 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by adding at the end the following:

Subpart D of part III of subchapter A of chapter 61 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as added by section 1502, is amended by inserting after section 6055 the following new section:

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 is amended by inserting after section 18B (as added by section 1512) the following:

Section 2735 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg-21), as so redesignated by section 1001(4), is amended—

Title XIX of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1397aa et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:

Section 1902(a)(10)(A)(ii) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1396a(a)(10)(A)(ii)), as amended by section 2001(e), is amended—

Section 1902 of such Act (42 U.S.C. 1396a), as amended by section 2001(d), is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

Title XI of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1301 et seq.), as amended by section 401 of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-3), is amended by inserting after section 1139A the following new section:

Title V of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 701 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following new section:

Title V of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 701 et seq.), as amended by section 2951, is amended by adding at the end the following new section:

Title V of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 701 et seq.), as amended by sections 2951 and 2952(c), is amended by adding at the end the following:

Title III of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 241 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:

Public Health Service Act- Title IX of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 299 et seq.) is amended—

(1) by redesignating part D as part E;

(2) by redesignating sections 931 through 938 as sections 941 through 948, respectively;

(3) in section 948(1), as so redesignated, by striking `931’ and inserting `941’; and

(4) by inserting after section 926 the following:

Title XVIII of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395 et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 1890 the following:

END QUOTE

It’s no wonder they can’t identify it in the budget. It’s all over the place.

And I’m sure that was by design.


4 posted on 04/11/2013 4:37:16 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: markomalley

Yet, ignorance of the Law is still no excuse; especially for us serfs.

Somehow, though, the morons that write up this mess get re-elected 90%+ of the time. Guess that shows just who the morons truly are.


5 posted on 04/11/2013 8:35:35 AM PDT by i_robot73 (We hold that all individuals have the Right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives - LP.org)
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To: markomalley

You need a secret decoder ring from a cracker-jack box just to have a chance of finding out what is in it.


6 posted on 04/11/2013 6:55:48 PM PDT by DarkWaters ("Deception is a state of mind --- and the mind of the state" --- James Jesus Angleton)
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To: markomalley

My desperate hope it that Obamacare will torpedo a lot of Dems in the 2014 midterms.


7 posted on 04/11/2013 7:01:59 PM PDT by nascarnation (Baraq's economic policy: trickle up poverty)
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