February 22, 2019

CBO Grossly Overestimated Uninsured

It was way off in its estimates of the number of uninsured without the individual mandate.

“Scandalously off.” Those are the words the Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein used to describe claims from the Congressional Budget Office regarding the anticipated effect of ObamaCare’s individual mandate.

Recall that the individual mandate was the motor around which everything else supposedly revolved. “CBO estimates about the importance of an individual mandate to a national healthcare scheme prodded President Barack Obama into including the unpopular provision into the law in the first place,” Klein writes. Moreover, in 2017, during which Republicans were attempting to repeal and replace ObamaCare, the CBO doubled down by claiming the number of insured would drop by 14 million (and eventually more) — most of which “would stem from repealing the penalties associated with the individual mandate,” the CBO claimed.

Except the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, almost as an afterthought, has exposed the fallaciousness of those estimates. “In what was literally a footnote in its annual report on national health spending projections, actuaries for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Wednesday estimated that the elimination of the individual mandate would have a significantly smaller impact than the CBO has long estimated,” Klein says. “Specifically, the CMS report revealed that 2.5 million more people would go without insurance in 2019 due to the repeal of the individual mandate’s penalties, and the impact would be ‘smaller’ thereafter.”

There’s already evidence to support this conclusion. ObamaCare enrollment this year tallied 8.4 million, which isn’t all that far off from the 8.7 million who enrolled in 2018. “Given the outsized influence that the CBO has on policymaking in Washington,” Klein says, “the CBO’s misfire on the individual mandate should be a major story.” Scandalous indeed.

Exit question: Would Republican health reform have passed if the ludicrous accounting from the CBO’s snake-oil salesmen was left out of the equation? That’s a question worth asking centrist lawmakers.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.