I pointed out to you here that while the advertised cost of the first ten years of the House Placebocare bill was $829, the real cost, if fully implemented, was over $1.3 Trillion, 57% more than claimed. The reason for this dramatic difference is that while the House plan has taxes and other revenue sources beginning almost immediately, the expenses, or implementation of the benefits, did start for nearly 4 years.
The Senate bill is no better than the House. It too begins to generate revenue long before it hits the full stride of expenses. As a result, the Senate bill claims it will cost around $1 Trillion. We all know that this number is false. What we don’t know is how big the real number is. Well, it appears that the Democrats might.
In comments today, Democrat Senator Max Baucus from Montana said:
“Just for a second — health care reform, whether you use a ten-year number or when you start in 2010 or start in 2014, wherever you start at, so it is still either $1 trillion or it’s $2.5 Trillion, depending on where you start…”
What? “It’s either $1 Trillion or $2.5 Trillion, depending on where you start?”
Senator Baucus is willing to concede that the Senate version of Placebocare could have a swing in cost of $1.5 Trillion, 150% of the advertised price, “depending on where you start.” Baucus treats $1.5 Trillion dollars as if it’s some irrelevant amount. He treats it as I would treat a dime in my checkbook balancing; as a rounding error!
If Senator Baucus is right and “It’s either $1 Trillion or $2.5 Trillion, depending on where you start,” might I suggest that we start really, really early? I’d suggest we start where the price tag is still ZERO!
A trillion here, a trillion there pretty soon you will be talking about serious money.