“Republicans push repeal of health-care law, reject new CBO estimates on deficit impact - Washington Post” plus 1 more |
Posted: 06 Jan 2011 11:57 AM PST New Speaker of the House John A. Boehner and other Republican lawmakers pressed ahead with plans Thursday to repeal last year's landmark health-care legislation, rejecting a new Congressional Budget Office estimate that doing so would increase the federal deficit and brushing off Democratic complaints that Republicans are already breaking their promises. In his first news conference since becoming speaker Wednesday as the new Republican-majority House took office, Boehner (R-Ohio) said the House is expected to vote next week to repeal what he repeatedly called the "job-killing health-care law." The law, enacted in March, was President Obama's signature domestic achievement, and the nonpartisan CBO projected that it would reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion over the first 10 years and $1.2 trillion over the second decade. A new CBO estimate released Thursday forecasts that repealing the law would increase federal budget deficits by roughly $230 billion from 2012 to 2021. In addition, the CBO says, the Republican-sponsored repeal legislation "would increase federal deficits in the decade after 2019" by about half a percent of gross domestic product. U.S. GDP currently stands at about $14.7 trillion. The CBO estimate also projects that about 32 million fewer Americans would have health insurance in 2019 if repeal were enacted. It says that "premiums in the individual market would be lower, on average," under the GOP repeal legislation but that "many people would end up paying more for health insurance" because the repeal would eliminate subsidies in insurance exchanges. Asked about the CBO estimates and how repealing the health-care law would fulfill GOP pledges to cut the nation's debt, Boehner was dismissive. "Well, I do not believe that repealing the job-killing health-care law will increase the deficit," he replied. "CBO is entitled to their opinion, but they're locked within constraints of the 1974 Budget Act." Pressed on why Republicans are exempting the repeal legislation from his own requirement to "offset" increases to the deficit, Boehner said: "Well, if you believe that repealing Obamacare is going to raise the deficit, then you would have to have some way to offset that spending. But I don't think anybody in this town believes that repealing Obamacare is going to increase the deficit." In his initial news conference as speaker, Boehner also said he was pleased with new House rules adopted Wednesday. "Gone are the days when the bills will be written in the speaker's office and rushed to the floor in a matter of hours," he said. But his pledge of greater "openness" came under attack Thursday from Democrats in an emergency meeting of the House Rules Committee to consider the Republicans' opening legislative salvo, the "Repeal of the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." Democrats charged that the new majority is going ahead without a single hearing on the legislation and under rules that do not allow any amendments. Republicans are "advocating for a piece of legislation that has had no hearings," Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) told his GOP colleagues. "Nobody's had any input, Republican or Democrat, and you're all advocating a foreclosed process to bring it up on the floor. So . . . you've been in for 24 hours, and already you've broken your promise." In response to such criticism, Boehner said in his news conference: "I promised a more open process. I didn't promise that every single bill was going to be an open bill." Boehner also rejected Democratic charges that the House Republicans' efforts to repeal the health-care law are ultimately pointless, because a repeal bill is unlikely to be passed or even taken up in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and even if such a bill did reach Obama's desk, he would undoubtedly veto it. "No, I do not," Boehner said when asked if he thought the repeal effort was "a waste of time." He said Republicans are doing "what we said we were going to do, and I think it's pretty clear to the American people that the best health-care system in the world's going to [go down] the drain if we don't act." Boehner pledged that Republicans would "replace" Obama's health-care law with "common-sense reforms that'll reduce the cost of health insurance in America." However, GOP leaders have decided not to link any replacement provisions with their repeal legislation. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Health spending growth slows - Dallas Morning News Posted: 06 Jan 2011 06:21 AM PST 08:28 AM CST on Thursday, January 6, 2011WASHINGTON – Total national health spending grew 4 percent in 2009, the slowest rate of increase in 50 years, as people lost their jobs, lost health insurance and deferred medical care, the federal government reported Wednesday. Still, health care accounted for a larger share of a smaller economy – a record 17.6 percent of the total economic output in 2009, the report said. The economy contracted while health spending continued to grow. The nation spent $2.5 trillion on health care in 2009, for an average of $8,086 a person, and the recession had a profound influence. "Many consumers decreased their use of health care goods and services, partly because they had lost employer-based private health insurance coverage and partly because their household income had declined," said Anne Martin, an economist and principal author of the report, issued by the office of the actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In many cases, Martin said, people decided to "forgo health care services they could not afford." The number of visits to doctors' offices apparently declined. Many hospitals reported fewer admissions, as patients put off medical procedures. Spending on dental services declined slightly. Many hospitals and other health care providers reduced their capital investments. Spending on doctors' services in 2009 increased at the slowest pace since 1996, according to the new federal study. Partly offsetting the slowdown in private health spending was a rapid increase in Medicaid spending, driven by the addition of 3.5 million people to the rolls. Medicaid, created in 1965 to provide health care for low-income people, is financed jointly by the federal government and the states. The economic stimulus program approved in February 2009 temporarily increased the federal share, to help states in dire fiscal straits cope with a growing need. Federal officials emphasized that none of the data reflected the impact of the new health care law, which President Barack Obama signed in March 2010. Spending on health care by private insurance companies grew a modest 1.3 percent in 2009, as the number of people with private coverage declined by 3.2 percent, or 6.3 million people. At the same time, out-of-pocket spending by consumers rose just four-tenths of 1 percent, compared with an increase of 3.1 percent in 2008. Despite the economy's downturn, retail spending on prescription drugs "increased more rapidly in 2009 than in 2008, as a result of more rapid growth in the prices of drugs and in the number of prescriptions dispensed," the report said. The share of the economy devoted to health care rose 1 percentage point in 2009, the largest one-year increase in a half-century of record-keeping. Robert Pear, The New York Times This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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