ObamaCare to add $131 billion to federal deficit

President Barack Obama promised that he would “not sign a [health-care] plan that adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.” But according to a new analysis by Republican members of the Senate Budget Committee, or SBC, ObamaCare is now estimated to increase the federal budget deficit by $131 billion over the next ten years.

This is a far cry from the original estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, that predicted the president’s signature health-care law would reduce the deficit. Based on a CBO estimate published in 2012,  the law would reduce the deficit by $180 billion between fiscal years, or FY, 2015-2024. That estimate would be off by more than $300 billion, if the SBC numbers prove accurate.

Additionally, the CBO announced earlier this year that it could no longer estimate the budgetary impact of the law. The complexity of the law, as well as the many implementation delays and changes, made the task too difficult. In the newly released analysis, the SBC used the most-recent CBO estimate of the fiscal impact of a full repeal of the law to approximate the 10-year budgetary impact the ObamaCare is having on the federal deficit.

Not only is ObamaCare falling short in providing affordable and accessible health care for the nation’s uninsured, it is coming with a very high price tag. This newest revelation that the law will dramatically increase the federal deficit is just one more reason it is time to go back to the drawing board to craft health-care solutions that give greater control to the individual.

Naomi Lopez Bauman is Director of Health Policy for the Illinois Policy Institute.