CBO: ObamaCare To Be Twice As Expensive As Expected, and Cover Fewer People

Just another one of those things we’re finding out after passing the bill like Nancy Pelosi said, I guess:

The Congressional Budget Office has extended its cost estimates for President Obama’s health care law out to 2022, taking in more years of full implementation, and showing that the bill is substantially more expensive — twice as much as the original $900 billion price tag.

In a largely overlooked segment of the CBO’s update to the budget outlook released Tuesday, the independent arm of Congress found that the bill will cost $1.76 trillion between now and 2022.

That only counts the cost of coverage, not implementation costs and other changes.

“The bill spends more than the president promised, it covers fewer people — probably 2 million fewer people — and it taxes more than was expected,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6_1Pw1xm9U

Surprise, surprise, surprise! The ObamaCare promises aren’t coming true!

As I said last month:

If there’s one thing to take away from this story, it’s that government programs always cost more than the rosy projections the politicians proclaim when they’re trying to get the votes for it. I honestly can’t think of a single federal government program that has come in under budget.

Of course, trusting politicians in the first place is usually a bad idea, especially trusting them with money. As P. J. O’Rourke said many years ago, “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”

That’s what happens when you have academic wonks that have very limited real-world experience writing bills. The federal government (“Fedzilla,” to use Ted Nugent’s term) pretty much always goes over budget and doesn’t reach its intended goals.

This is a big part of why I believe in smaller government — big government programs just don’t work as advertised, but they work quite well at giving power to power-mad DC bureaucrats who already have too much authority over our daily lives.