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Interesting op-ed, especially given that it's in the NYT.
But I was struck by this paragraph:
Even worse, some costs are left out entirely. To operate the new programs over the first 10 years, future Congresses would need to vote for $114 billion in additional annual spending. But this so-called discretionary spending is excluded from the Congressional Budget Office’s tabulation.I've been calling all over Washington since last August trying to find out how many new federal employees would be hired to staff all those new agencies. I even talked to one of the "scorers" at CBO. To a person, I was told: "We don't know that".
In other words, it's not included in the bill's costs? This op-ed is the first published reference I've seen, and it appears to confirm what I suspected.
I will say, I think the $114 billion "annually" must be an error. Even if that figure is for 10 years, it would mean 228,000 new bureaucrats at an average $50k/year. And---keep in mind---they will not all be in place for the full 10 years---so it's probably even more.
Does anyone have any more information on this? Has anyone found ANYTHING that tells us what it will cost to implement this scheme? All I've heard is IRS information. But there are hundreds of new agencies, commissions, etc. created in this bill. What will it cost to staff/equip all of them?
As I understand the issue, it seems that we are taking from Seniors (Medicare) to fund 30M Americans who do not have insurance. The 30M would each get a subsidy of $6K annually to buy insurance. I think this is where most of the money goes -- not to set up bureaucracies.
Your general point is well taken however. There will be a massive bureaucracy, but I am not sure the bill spells out how big and how it will be organized.