The Actual Cost of ObamaCare: Add $1Trillion

Oh, what the hell's another trillion or so?

...The CBO is actually being kind to the would-be reformers. Its analysis likely understates—by at least $1 trillion—the true costs of expanding health coverage as current Democratic legislation contemplates.

The discrepancies between our estimates and CBO’s stem from our different assumptions about a key issue...How many people would opt for coverage under this public insurance? We believe that both large and small employers would have powerful incentives to shift their employees out of private coverage and into the public plan. Like the Urban Institute, we estimate that roughly 40 million people would make the shift. CBO seems to assume, however, that large employers would use the public plan only sparingly and that only 11 million people would move from private to public insurance—which would, of course, result in lower costs

29 million difference?

Yah. Those who are parroting the ObamaLine on this are colossal economic ignorami.

The 50th percentile overall average (mean) wage paid in the USA in 2005 was $14.96/hour, according to BLS. It's increased since then, of course--so let's round it up to $15.00/hour.

That's $31,200./year.

HR3200 envisions an 8% payroll tax for entities which do NOT provide health insurance--which would be about $2,500./year. Right now, a typical FAMILY insurance policy costs about $1,000/month.

$12K for insurance or $2500 for tax--which would YOU rather pay??

Scritch, scratch, scritch.........

Right-o, BeanCounter!! Pay the fine and dump the employees into "public option." Unless your workforce is covered by a union contract, of course--and by no co-incidence whatsoever, unions support (D) politicians!

So only about 14% of the private-sector workers will retain their health insurance, and a much larger percentage of Gummint employees (at all levels.)

Meaning that the Manhattan Institute and the Urban Institute are correct, and that the ObamaBots are wrong.

But hey! It's only $1Trillion or so...

HT: AmSpecBlog