Former CBO Director: Democrats' Health Care Budgeting is a Fantasy

Kevin Glass | October 26, 2009 12:36 PM

Amidst all the hype surrounding the CBO score of the Senate Finance Committee's health care overhDouglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget

The Congressional Budget Office scored the Senate Finance Committee's health care overhaul bill and concluded that it will save money over its ten-year time frame. There are many reasons that conservatives have pointed out that this is bunk. Now, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the CBO, shines a light on the CBO scoring process to reveal that it's all smoke and mirrors.

Put simply, if the Senate Finance Committee drafts a budgetary fantasy, CBO will have to score it. If I had a CBO, I could send it my plan for next year: make $5 million a month and buy a 50-room mansion with a national debt clock on every wall. I’m sure they would be able to say, “yep, this balances”. But that doesn’t mean it will happen. The same is true of the current healthcare reform fantasies.

Read the rest here. And, more importantly, don't believe the deficit-neutral fantasy that the CBO is telling.