Take CBO Report With a Grain of Salt: Obamacare Repeal Would Not Increase Deficits

Kathryn Nix / January 06, 2011

Next week, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 2, a measure to repeal Obamacare in its entirety. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today released a report stating that repealing the health care law would increase the deficit by $145 billion between 2012 and 2019.

This report is based on the findings of the CBO’s March 2010 report that predicted that Obamacare would reduce the deficit. CBO does respectable work, but their analysts have their hands tied by assumptions they are required to make. The reality is that, in spite of the March report, Obamacare will not reduce the deficit, so repealing it would not add to the deficit, in spite of today’s report.

The CBO report should be taken with a grain of salt for a few reasons. First, CBO is required to assume that current law will be enacted as written, even in cases where reality couldn’t be further from what is on the books. CBO Director Doug Elmendorf himself makes this clear in the report: (more…)