That Obama "Budget"? It's Cooked

The Obama 'budget' baked in a large flaw.

Caught by the AEI:

...For the first time by any administration in memory, the Obama budget forecast rejects the Medicare Trustees’ projections for long-run healthcare cost growth. The reason: the Trustees’ projections undercut the administration’s narrative that increased federal control over private sector healthcare could painlessly reduce Medicare and Medicaid costs. The Obama budget instead assumes long-term health cost growth at twice the rate projected by the Trustees.

It's possible that they knew the entire US population would get REALLY sick during the Obama regime, I suppose.

There could have been another reason, and sure enough, AEI thinks they know.

To what possible purpose could these changes have been made? The answer lies in the administration’s case for increased federal control over private-sector healthcare. Since coming into office, the administration has argued that “the deficit impact of every other fiscal policy variable is swamped by the impact of health-care costs,” as Obama budget director Peter Orszag wrote in the Wall Street Journal last year. Excess cost growth, Orszag argued, is the real deficit threat.

So if the damned Trustees won't make the case, we'll make up shit numbers that WILL, dammit.

Does this have an impact? You betcha!!

The effects of this change are staggering: the administration’s 2010 budget, which followed the Trustees assumptions, projected Medicare costs of 9.6 percent of GDP by 2080. The 2011 budget, which uses White House assumptions, projects Medicare will consume 22 percent of GDP by 2085.

HT: The Winning McCain