As the nation prepares for the second enrollment period under The Affordable Care Act in November, there is officially no way of figuring out what Obamacare is going to do to federal deficits compared to the estimates used to push the program through Congress.
Back in 2009, it was really important to President Obama that people understand he would not “sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits—either now or in the future. Period.” He sold the plan as costing about $938 billion in its first decade of operation (2010 through 2019) but saving about $143 billion overall because of the various taxes and other revenue it raised. A 2012 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report figured that Obamacare would shave $109 billion off the deficit between 2013 and 2022.
This past June, however, the CBO said it will no longer try to estimate the law’s effects on the deficit. There have been too many delays, postponements, modifications, you name it, to the original bill. “Isolating the incremental effects of those provisions on previously existing programs and revenues four years after enactment of the Affordable Care Act is not possible,” the CBO concluded.
So what’s going on? The deficit for fiscal year 2014, which ended on September 30, came in at “just” $483 billion and 2.8 percent of GDP, the lowest figures in years. President Obama was quick to say it was because of his signature health-care reform plan. “Healthcare has long been the single biggest driver of America’s future deficits,” reports The Hill. “Healthcare is now the single biggest factor driving those deficits down.”
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