Government health care estimates

No matter your thoughts on the various health care proposals being trotted out at in Congress, it bears hearing Peter Schiff's reminder on government estimates of health care costs:

When Medicare was first proposed back in 1966, it cost $3 billion per year, and the projection was for inflation-adjusted annual costs to rise to $12 billion by 1990. The actual cost in 1990 was $107 billion, and the 2009 estimate is a staggering $408 billion! So much for government estimates on health care.

Ditto all other government estimates. A safe bet, always, to multiply by 2 what the feds tell us anything will cost (or state and local bodies, for that matter -- when was the last time you heard of a road or building project coming in at budget?). Where health care is concerned, I'm thinking 4x is the proper minimum multiplier -- even though the government estimate in 1990 for Medicare was a mere 1/9 the actual cost.

Even the Obama administration is revising upward, from the $950 billion over the next 20 years the president relayed to the AMA audience to $1.6 trillion, projected by the Congressional Budget Office. Remember, this is in addition to the cost of all health care now, which approaches $2 trillion as is.

As the Senate nears approval of some form of package, tax increases, benefit cuts, and new requirements on employers will come with it. There is no choice; it has to be paid for.