Did Obama “Instruct” The CBO Director to Change The Numbers?

posted at 8:08 am on July 28, 2009 by Rovin

In the fashion of Al Gore’s grasping of the ever-changing climate change computer models, Barack Obama, (or someone in his administration), has found a way to “change the dialogue” of the predicted astronomical cost of his health care plan. Just a week ago, the CBO announced that the plans being reported out of the House would actually raise the overall cost of federal spending:

Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf warned that the Democrats’ health care bills won’t meet President Barack Obama’s goal of slowing the ruinous rise of medical costs, giving weight to critics who say the legislation could break the bank. He stressed that their health care proposals would raise costs, not lower them.

Elmendorf explained: “In the legislation that has been reported, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.” LINK

What transpired over the next week may very well go down in the historical archives with such names as the “Obama-Elmendorf Two-Step” or, in the vain of the global warming alarmist, if you don’t have the correct data to support your view, just change the numbers. Did the President, (when he called/summoned Elmendorf to “his house” last week), explain that the CBO was just using the wrong numbers?  Or, did Obama just set a different table with a different menu that Elmendorf could find palatable? In today’s Washington Times article, “CBO Boost Obama’s Health Care Plan”, the Times explains this new tactical ploy by the administration:

“President Obama and his Democratic allies, scrambling to broker a health care deal Monday, finally got an upbeat assessment from Congress’ official scorekeeper when it said the plan for government-run coverage would not force out private insurers.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer trumpeted the report from the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’ nonpartisan budget analyst, that said private insurers could survive competition from a government health insurance option – contradicting a chief criticism from Republicans.

“Now we’ve heard that the reform will represent a government takeover of health care. A point of fact: The opposite is true,” said Mr. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat.” LINK

Despite the fact the plan will continue to run over the trillion dollar mark in federal spending, Mr. Hoyer and the Obama administration have chosen to tackle another portion of the debate by getting Mr. Elmendorf to comply with, (or in the White House’s case), come up with a set of numbers that would dispute the Republicans assertion that the “public option”, (government run health care insurance), would drive private insurance companies out of business. The Washington Times here supplies these new “sets” of numbers:

“Republicans touted a report from the Lewin Group, a health research firm owned by an insurance company, that predicted 100 million people out of the 160 million now covered by employer-sponsored insurance would go to the government coverage.

But the CBO estimates about 12 million people would opt for the public plan. The wide difference in estimates is the result of drastically different assumptions about the price of the plans. CBO estimated the public plan would cost 10 percent less than private plans, compared with the Lewin Group estimate that it would be 20 percent cheaper.”

While advocates of Obama’s health care plan could certainly claim that the numbers supplied by the Lewin Group are out of proportion or simply too high, the question can also be asked to Mr. Elmendorf about how, (and why), the CBO arrived at these low numbers? Another question would be, what would prevent the government, (after passing legislation with the “10%” estimate) from eliminating the competition by reducing the cost at a later date?

Either way, this trillion dollar price tag’s not going away by playing with these numbers, but it’s sure to make Al Gore stand up and pound his chest, while his lawyers line up to sue Obama over patent infringement.

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