Obamacare To Hike State Taxes

The advocates of ObamaCare argue that the overhaul of the American health-care system will cost “only” a trillion dollars in its first decade. Michael Cannon at the libertarian think tank Cato says that Congress relies on significant budgetary gimmicks to get to that number, and that the true cost of ObamaCare in its first real decade is six times that amount. See a couple of examples of gimmickry here:

One gimmick makes the new entitlement spending appear smaller by not opening the spigot until late in the official 10-year budget window (2010–2019). Correcting for that gimmick in the Senate version, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) estimates, “When all this new spending occurs” — i.e., from 2014 through 2023 — “this bill will cost $2.5...