NYC Letter: Lies The President Told Me, Part VI Redux -- Deficit Neutral Health Reform

Day 1,134 of CHOPE

"You Always Knew This Was A Lie, Right?" Edition

And here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future. (Applause.) I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period. And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize.

Mr. Obama,
making a pre-broken pledge on
deficit neutral health reform
REMARKS TO JOINT SESSION
OF CONGRESS ON HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON September 9, 2009 (White House)

Not even trying to convincingly lie at this point.

REPUBLICAN PROBES $111 BILLION JUMP
IN COST OF HEALTHCARE LAW

WASHINGTON March 2, 2012 (The Hill) - Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) is asking about a spike in the estimated costs of subsidies to help people buy private insurance — a central, and expensive, component of the new healthcare law.

The administration’s budget request this year included $111 billion more for subsidies than its request last year. The difference falls across the same seven-year window. Mr. Camp wrote Friday in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner:

This staggering increase in health insurance exchange subsidy spending cannot be explained by legislative changes or new economic assumptions, and therefore must reflect substantial changes in underlying assumptions regarding the program’s utilization and cost.

Instructive quote interlude.

When one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it.

Joseph Goebbels,
Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda
January 12, 1941 (Die Zeit ohne Beispiel)

Team Barry sticks to it.

The Treasury Department said the increase is technical and does not reflect any change in how the administration plans to implement the healthcare law.

"The increase is technical", apparently means it will cost more, the why of which is what Mr. Camp writes to ask about. With no "change in how the administration plans to implement the healthcare law", again fails to address the cost. [Pause.] Well, a $111B differential means something has changed and that is at the heart of Mr. Camp's query. What has changed is the real cost has pushed up against the phony cost used to grab headlines and beg votes to pass this junk legislation.

Camp's letter cites Congressional Budget Office scores of two bills that passed since the White House submitted its last budget. Together, the bills were expected to cut the cost of exchange subsidies by about $9 billion, he said, making the White House’s projected increase all the more surprising.

In Treasury's defense, they can't do math (and here).

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said during a Ways and Means hearing earlier this week that she was unfamiliar with the issue.

Just how much of this junk law must be discredited -- starting with the deficit neutral fairy tale (and here and here and here, then this and this) -- before it is trashed in its entirety?

CHOPE.

Make a big promise, that's CHOPE. Break the promise, that's politics.