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Health Care | Entitlements

Is it Becoming Too Late to Fix Social Security's Finances?
Charles Blahous | 2012-08-31

Social Security’s future is now greatly imperiled. The last few years of legislative neglect have drastically harmed the program’s future financial prospects. Individuals now planning their financial futures, whether as taxpayers or as beneficiaries, should be pricing in a substantial risk that the federal government will not be able to maintain Social Security as a self-financing, stand-alone program over the long term. If Social Security financing corrections are not enacted in 2013, or at the very latest by 2015, it becomes fairly likely that they will not be enacted at all.

Health Care Costs and ObamaCare
James C. Capretta | 2012-07-31

Christina D. Romer, the former chairwoman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, has penned the latest in a long series of columns by ObamaCare apologists touting the supposed cost-control virtues of the new law. Although she is right about the severity of the problem, she is dead wrong about ObamaCare’s role in addressing it. ObamaCare did not lay the foundation for sensible cost control, and did not partially ease budgetary pressures, as she asserts. Quite the contrary, ObamaCare will pour an ocean of gasoline on the health entitlement fire, and the supposed cost-control mechanisms are a mirage.

Yet Another Fiscal Turn for the Worse: Understanding the CBO Re-Score of the 2010 Health Care Law
Charles Blahous | 2012-07-25

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has just published, in two reports, its updated score of the 2010 health care law. The new score is bad news from almost any vantage point. CBO’s fiscal evaluation of the law is worse than before, even though the number of people receiving health insurance coverage is now projected to be fewer.

The Post-SCOTUS CBO Report
David Barnes | 2012-07-24

The Congressional Budget Office released a new cost estimate for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on Tuesday to account for the Supreme Court’s June 28th decision to uphold the law in part and strike down some of its Medicaid provisions. CBO determined that the law would now cost $84 billion less while covering 3 million fewer people.

Did the Supreme Court Ruling Render the Health Law's Finances Untenable?
Charles Blahous | 2012-06-29

It is quite possible that this week’s Supreme Court ruling has just changed the 2010 health care law in such a way that it will add substantially to federal deficits from almost any vantage point. We will know more after the Congressional Budget Office completes its analysis.

SCOTUS Post-Mortem: What's Next?
James C. Capretta | 2012-06-28

Today’s Supreme Court decision is complex and will likely take weeks to fully digest in terms of what it means for the future of ObamaCare. But a few things are becoming clear. For starters, the Court found that at least one part of ObamaCare is indeed unconstitutional. Specifically, the provisions of the statute by which the federal government would try to coerce the states into a massive Medicaid expansion were ruled invalid by the Court.

Supreme Suspense: Getting Ready for the Big ObamaCare Decision
James C. Capretta | 2012-06-13

Very soon, the Supreme Court will be rendering judgment on the constitutionality of ObamaCare. It is one of the most highly anticipated decisions in decades, and for good reason. Whatever the outcome, it’s going to be a political earthquake. The only question is the degree to which it will shake up the political and policy landscape.

A Guide to the 2012 Medicare Trustees Report
Charles Blahous | 2012-04-30

This is the second of two articles on the 2012 Social Security and Medicare Trustees’ reports. In the last article I discussed Social Security. This article will focus on the Medicare report.

A Guide to the 2012 Social Security Trustees Report
Charles Blahous | 2012-04-26

This will be the first of two articles on the 2012 Social Security and Medicare Trustees’ reports. I am one of the six trustees of these two programs, and one of two public trustees along with Dr. Robert Reischauer. Our annual reports on these two programs’ finances were released with an accompanying summary on Monday, April 23.

Yes, the Health Law Worsens the Deficit
Charles Blahous | 2012-04-18

Last week the Mercatus Center published my study showing that the health care law of 2010 (the ACA) will add at least $340 billion to federal deficits over the next ten years, and more than $1.15 trillion to net federal spending. The study has received a great deal of attention, which has highlighted the need for wider public understanding of federal budget procedures. In this article I will explain some of those budget rules while further substantiating that my basic conclusion is correct.


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