Great article: Paul Ryan -- bad at math, or bad at telling the truth

[zulchzulu]

Although this article was posted last Tuesday, it is still relevant when one needs to continue to spank the Republicans when they overtly lie about the current health care reform passed.



In case anyone knows Paul Ryan, he's the asshat Repig who has really neato hair and actually either thinks he knows what he's talking about or is just another abject Repig liar hoping all Americans are as stupid as loyal Fox Noise viewers:

“When you take all the double counting from the CLASS Act (the health care reform bill), taking these premiums to this new program, taking $53 billion from Social Security for this new program, the $71 billion it’s gonna take to cause this (points to chart), the $398 billion being taken out of the Medicare trust fund to pay for this new program, you have a $454 billion deficit over the first 10 years. ... This isn’t Paul Ryan saying this. This is the Congressional Budget Office analysis when you look at the actual details of this bill and you take the smoke and mirrors and the double counting out.”

(snip)

According to the CBO estimate, released three days before Ryan appeared on Fox, health care reform will lead to “a net reduction in federal deficits.”

Specifically, the CBO analysts told Congress on March 18: “(The) CBO and JCT (Joint Committee on Taxation) estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation -- H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation proposal -- would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion over the 2010-2019 period.”

According to PolitiFact, the independent group that fact-checks political rhetoric in Washington: “There’s no debate about the first 10 years: The CBO analysis clearly states that the health care bill passed by the Senate, together with the reconciliation proposal, ‘would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion over the 2010-2019 period as a result of changes in direct spending and revenue.’ ”

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_a397eeec-35e1-11df-8c44-001cc4c03286.html

Wow. Another Republican lying about health care reform? Are they the party of truth? HELL NO!

[Clio the Leo]

1. lol @ "really neato hair"

Ever notice how the average GOP male looks like he spends more time on his hair than the average ..... well, anyone else?

[DrToast]

2. He's the guy who criticizes Dems for cutting Medicare waste....

...while at the same time he's pitching his own plan that disbands Medicare.

[zulchzulu]

3. Ryan wants to privatize Medicare... imagine if Bush had done that before the 2008 bust...

It's pure insanity.

Ryan is a boilerplate Republican against choice, against gays, against health care reform, against full stem cell research, against teaching evolution, against helping the poor...

... a perfect choice for Republicans to FAIL...

[jeanpalmer]

4. It's not really $138 billion

even by the CBO's own estimate. The CBO only scored what was in the bill. It left out costs that will be appropriated in future legislation to implement the PPACA. For example, it estimates IRS costs at $5-$10 billion and HHS costs at $5-$10 billion. It estimates the cost of grants and other future funding to be "at least $50 billion." These items reduce the official deficit reduction to $68-$78 billion. And then: "A third category of discretionary spending is explicit authorizations for a variety of grant and other programs for which no funding levels are specified in the legislation. CBO has not yet completed estimates of the amounts of such authorizations." Who knows how much that will be. see p. 11 http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11379/Manager'sAmendmenttoReconciliationProposal.pdf

The CBO also notes on p.14: "Those longer-term calculations reflect an assumption that the provisions of the reconciliation proposal and H.R. 3590 are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. For example, the...mechanism governing Medicare’s payments to physicians has frequently been modified...and legislation to do so again is currently under consideration by the Congress. The reconciliation proposal and H.R. 3590 would maintain and put into effect a number of policies that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time. Under current law, payment rates for physicians’ services in Medicare would be reduced by about 21 percent in 2010 and then decline further in subsequent years; the proposal makes no changes to those provisions." The CBO then lists other assumptions regarding costs that clearly it thinks may be unrealistic.

The PPACA is like any other plan -- change the assumptions and the costs change. Is it realistic to assume that Congress will keep the 21% reduction in payments to physicians, when it has always voted an increase in the past? And yet these unrealistic assumptions are what produce the deficit reduction. But still, the CBO is technically correct in its deficit reduction estimate because it only makes an estimate for the PPACA. If the PPACA reduces the deficit by $138 billion, but subsequent related legislation increases it by $138 billion, technically the PPACA reduces the deficit by $138 billion. It's called accounting gimmickry.

Regarding Medicare savings, using these savings/taxes to fund the PPACA prevents their use in the future to fund Medicare. They can only be spent once on one item -- they can't be used to fund both Medicare and the PPACA (the double counting problem). To the extent that the PPACA uses Medicare savings/taxes to fund itself, it robs Medicare of a future funding source.

President Obama has stated that the biggest drivers of the deficit are Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare just recently went into defict, meaning it's taking in less than it's paying out. The Medicare trust fund is projected to be exhausted in 2017. And yet the PPACA takes funding sources that could/should be used to buttress Medicare solvency and spends it to subsidize the mandate. Obama's deficit Commission, if/when it considers Medicare, will not have this funding source available to reduce the cost of Medicare and will probably have to look at cuts in Medicare to come up with its deficit reduction. So this seems to be a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The CBO acknowledged this problem in its letter to Rep. Ryan. It noted that PPACA Medicare savigs and tax increases over the 10 year period amounted to $398 billion. But the estimated budget surplus/deficit reduction is only $138 billion, which means that the non-Medicare portion of the Act runs a deficit of $260 billion ($398 billion - $138 billion). p.4 http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11376/RyanLtrhr4872.pdf

What this means is that as Medicare needs additional funding, the government will have to sell bonds instead of using these taxes/savings, which will already have been "spent" mostly on mandated insurance subsidies. And that will drive up future deficits.