Chief Medicare Actuary Richard Foster Told the House Budget Committee Obamacare Would not Reduce Costs or Let People Keep Their Current Healthcare … Broken Obama Promises

Game, Set and Match against Obamacare …

So much for the promises that President Barack Obama and Democrats made regarding Obamacare, it turns out they were untruths. Barack Obama may want to put Obamacare in the rear view mirror, but the fact of the matter is it will be a key issue in the 2012 elections.

Chief CMS Actuary Richard Foster told the House Budget Committee that two of the central promises of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law are unlikely to be fulfilled. Medicare’s independent economic expert told the Congress that Obamacare  ”probably” won’t hold costs down, and it “won’t” let everybody keep their current health insurance if they wanted to. Remember when Nancy Pelosi said that “we have to pass the bill in order to find out what’s in it? I guess she was 100%. And the hits keep on coming from the Obama landmark legislation that was rammed down the throats of Americans against their will.

The landmark legislation probably won’t hold costs down, and it won’t let everybody keep their current health insurance if they like it, Chief Actuary Richard Foster told the House Budget Committee. His office is responsible for independent long-range cost estimates.

Foster’s assessment came a day after Obama in his State of the Union message told lawmakers that he’s open to improvements in the law, but unwilling to rehash the health care debate of the past two years. Republicans want to repeal the landmark legislation that provides coverage to more than 30 million people now uninsured, but lack the votes.

Foster was asked by Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., for a simple true or false response on two of the main assertions made by supporters of the law: that it will bring down unsustainable medical costs and will let people keep their current health insurance if they like it.

On the costs issue, “I would say false, more so than true,” Foster responded.

As for people getting to keep their coverage, “not true in all cases.”

After hearing such comments, think that a majority of Americans are not going to want to repeal Obamacare? Richard Foster is hardly a partisan, he is the independent Medicare actuary who is just merely presenting the facts. Remember when Barack Obama said,  there were three principles of Obamacare … reduce health care costs, individuals keep whatever doctor and health care plan they have, and all Americans must have quality and affordable health care. However, it would appear that two of the three tenants of Obamacare are fallacious.

No wonder President Barack Obama said during his SOTU speech that he did not want to revisit Obamacare and only make changes to the government take over of health care, if he deems the change appropriate. No wonder Obama does not want to go back and “re-fighting the battles of the last two years,” he would actually have to explain his broken promises to the American people.

So let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you. We can start right now by correcting a flaw in the legislation that has placed an unnecessary bookkeeping burden on small businesses …

So instead of re-fighting the battles of the last two years, let’s fix what needs fixing and move forward.

However, Richard Foster’s comments did not just end with his slamming of Obama’s principles of Obamacare, but then came  came Foster’s assault on the double-counting utilized in the CBO scoring.

REP. JOHN CAMPBELL(R- Calif.): “Is it legitimate to say… that you can add a dozen years to the solvency of Medicare or that you can reduce the deficit, but it is not correct to say both simultaneously?”

FOSTER: “Both will happen as a result of the same one set of savings, under Medicare. But it takes two sets of money to make it happen. It happens directly for the budget deficit, from the Medicare savings, and then when we need the money to extend the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, we have a promissory note –  it’s an IOU, not a worthless IOU, but it is an IOU – and Treasury has to pay that money back. But they have to get it from somewhere. That’s the missing link.”

Obama being open to “ideas about how to improve” Obamacare, is that as sincere as the president saying there would be transparency, but instead had back room deals to pass the government take over of health care? The Democrats and Obama are probably already creating their talking points against the independent actuary. Being against Obama care, he might even be called a racist. However, didn’t the media already come out and say that Obamacare will not reduce costs? we also remember that the Democrats were silent as to discussing Obamacare during the 2010 midterm elections, the reason being because the keys of Obamacare were a lie.

Finally,  Richard Foster stunned the House Budget Committee by saying that he was more confident in Paul Ryan’s ‘Road Map’ cost controls than Obama’s health law. OUCH! It is rather evident why most right minded thinking people want Obamacare repealed. The legislation has been a lie since day one.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat from Maryland, went on the attack against committee chairman Paul Ryan’s “Road Map” plan, which is a long-term proposal to make entitlement spending solvent.

Van Hollen pressed Foster on whether Ryan’s plan would work, prompting Foster to point out that one of the biggest problems in health care now is that most new technology that is developed increases costs rather than decreasing it.