There’s been a lot of misinformation when it comes to the new health care law—but not in the way Obamacare supporters have been claiming. We heard early on in the health reform debate that a massive overhaul of the private health care sector would bend the health care cost downward.
But when that looked unlikely under the best scenarios, Obamacare proponents pivoted and said the American public would embrace this law. Even former President Bill Clinton recently admitted he was wrong in saying that Democrats would pick up additional support with Obamacare’s passage.
So how much more could the new health law impact Americans and the health sector if other forecasts, such as those from the Congressional Budget Office, turn out to be false? Heritage’s brand-new Obamacare Impact Calculator shows the real-time results of what these changes could mean to you, the federal budget and the US economy if the CBO is wrong.
Many respected economics across the ideological spectrum have alternative viewpoints about how the bill’s provisions will truly play out. The calculator allows users to determine which economist is more likely to be correct.
The calculator also measures the likelihood that unpopular elements—such as the individual mandate, Medicare cuts and the excise tax on benefit-rich insurance plans—will actually be implemented, and what happens if they aren’t. Richard Foster, the chief actuary of Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has said it is extremely unlikely that Medicare will be cut by the $455 billion, but CBO was forced to assume these cuts would materialize when evaluating Obamacare.
Additionally, more reports have come out that the health care law may be more expensive than what was originally promised by President Barack Obama and his supporters. Many of the results in Heritage’s Obamacare Impact Calculator show that there is little room for error in order for the so-called “benefits” of the law to occur. What’s more likely is that future studies and reports will show Obamacare is more expensive than what Americans were told.
