The Affordable Health Care Act. Is it already paid for? If so How? On August 30th The Washington Post covered this topic with great detail. Really interesting Reading. After I read the article I am going to use their hard work as the basis to go one further…
“Even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover, even with new taxes on nearly a million small businesses, the planners in Washington still didn’t have enough money. They needed more. They needed hundreds of billions more. So, they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.”
There are two broad ways that Congress paid for the health-care law: It cut into government spending and created provisions that raise revenue, giving it the funds necessary to expand insurance to an estimated 32 million Americans. All of those changes are outlined in a July 24 Congressional Budget Office report.
The first category, the cuts to government spending, accounts for $741 billion of the health law’s financing. It’s mostly changes to how the government pays the doctors and hospitals who provide care to Medicaid and Medicare patients. Here’s how those changes break down, per the CBO:
The health law cuts into government spending, but that’s not its only source of funding. The law also raises new revenues as it expands insurance. Some of it comes from the provisions you’ve probably heard a lot about: A tax penalty for those who do not purchase coverage generates $55 billion over the course of a decade. An excise tax on the most expensive, so-called “Cadillac” insurance plans, nets $111 billion.
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But a lot of the money comes from less exciting parts of the law. The CBO expects to see $216 billion saved from the positive side effects of expanding insurance, like less reductions in uncompensated care. Another $318 billion is generated by having those who earn a gross income over $200,000 pay 3.8 percent of investment income toward Medicare’s hospital insurance. Here’s how it all breaks down:
Now. All of this seen and said:
Where are the cuts or revenues in the Trillions? $487 Billion Dollars in total revenue If you go back and look up the numbers crunched by the Washington Post. So the ACA is paid for. Economically we are still running a deficit. Congratulations everyone on spending your country into the next Somalia.
