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Democrat Health “Reform” by the Numbers - UPDATED

Democrat Health “Reform” by the Numbers - UPDATED

JUNE 23, 2009

The Republican Conference has compiled a list of important numbers relevant to the House Democrats’ 1,018-page “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act:”
 
114 million - Number of individuals who could lose their current coverage under the bill, according to non-partisan actuaries at the Lewin Group
 
4.7 million - Number of jobs that could be lost as a result of taxes on businesses that cannot afford to provide health insurance coverage, according to a model developed by Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christina Romer
 
$818 billion - Total new taxes on individuals who cannot afford health coverage, and employers who cannot afford to provide coverage that meet federal bureaucrats’ standards
 
$1.28 trillion - New federal spending in the next ten years, according to a Congressional Budget Office score of selected elements of the bill
 
.6% - Percentage of all that new spending occurring in the bill’s first three years—representing a debt and tax “time bomb” in the program’s later years that will explode for future generations
 
$88,200 - Definition of “low-income” family of four for purposes of health insurance subsidies
 
33 - Entitlement programs the bill creates, expands, or extends—an increase from an earlier draft
 
53 - Additional offices, bureaus, commissions, programs, and bureaucracies the bill creates over and above the entitlement expansions—also an increase from the discussion draft
 
1,683 - Uses of the word “shall,” representing new duties for bureaucrats and mandates on individuals, businesses, and States—and an increase of 306 mandates from the discussion draft
 
$10 billion - Minimum loss sustained by taxpayers every year due to Medicare fraud; the government-run health plan does not reform the ineffective anti-fraud statutes and procedures that have kept Medicare on the Government Accountability Office’s list of high-risk programs for two decades
 
Zero - Prohibitions on government programs like Medicare and Medicaid from using cost-effectiveness research to impose delays to or denials for access to life-saving treatments
 
2017 - Year Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted—a date unchanged by the bill, which re-directs savings from Medicare to fund new entitlements for younger Americans
 
$2,500 - Promised savings for each American family from health reform, according to then-Senator Obama’s campaign pledge—savings which the Congressional Budget Office has confirmed will not materialize, as the bill will not slow the growth of health care costs