Following the CBO’s re-adjustment of cost projections of the health care overhaul, President Obama’s OMB Director Peter Orszag felt compelled to respond on the White House website.
Orszag wrote: “The bottom line remains the same: the Affordable Care Act is the largest deficit reduction package enacted in over a decade according to CBO. It will reduce deficits by more than $100 billion in the current decade and more than $1 trillion in the decade after that — and that will not change.”
Will Mr. Orszag try his hand at stand-up comedy following his job as OMB Director?
At the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of Americans do not believe the Affordable Care Act will save money. But for Mr. Orszag and others in the Obama Administration, ignorance continues to be bliss.
Orszag isn’t the only one engaging in spin control with the revised CBO cost estimates. Ezra Klein is as well. Both Ross Douhat and Megan McArdle counter Klein’s points here and here.
Moreover, it bears mentioning that in 1990 Medicare cost $90 billion.
What was the original cost projection? $12 billion.
So don’t bet the house on Mr. Orszag’s powers of clairvoyance.
