The Congressional Budget Office has released a preliminary score of the health care 'reform' bill, suggesting that the measure will cost $940B over the next 10 years, while cutting deficits by $100B over that same time period. The score also includes this big, fat CYA:
"Although CBO completed a preliminary review of legislative language prior to its release, the agency has not thoroughly examined the reconciliation proposal to verify its consistency with the previous draft. This estimate is therefore preliminary, pending review of the language of the reconciliation proposal, as well as further review and refinement of the budgetary projections."
Democrats in the House and Senate are reported to be 'giddy'. I don't share their glee. By way of comparison, in 1966 the House Ways & Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost $12 billion in 1990. In 1990, the actual cost of Medicare was $107 billion.
And both the Ways & Means and CBO's estimates are said to have been conservative.
Yikes.
This should be front page news on every paper in the nation. Oh, it will be, but not the part about the incompleteness of the estimate nor the record of serious orders-of-magnitude underestimating. This will be heralded for all the wrong reasons.
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