Even this "Estimate" is absurdly low. 1% of total cost over ten years is only $100 billion dollars. This does not include the "Doctor Fix" or the fact that they save $5oo billion from Medicare but spend it in other new programs! Doc fix is $250 B + $500B (Not saved from Medicare)+ $100B in newly discovered cost = $850B loss over ten years that the liars in DC forgot to tell us about.

I don't think anyone can really estimate the cost of this program. When they were pushing Medicare 40 years ago, the cost was estimated at a level that is now something like 10 times greater. I can assure you that to maintain the current quality of the system in the coming years, the cost will be excessive. The only way to reduce the cost will be at the expense of quality and rationing.

I think Purdue has just proposed the same cost cutting measure as Kansas.

This was known before health care reform passed.

Over the next decade, the Affordable Care Act expands coverage, and offsets the cost with a mix of new taxes and spending reductions. It's not supposed to control costs over this time. It will provide coverage to some 30 million people who don't have it, while only expanding total spending by less than one percent. That's what it's supposed to do.

Then, after 2019 the cost controls kick in and the total spending on health care will be reduced. Conservatives are attempting to draw sweeping conclusions from only half of the available information and make it fit into their anti-HCR talking points. An honest criticism would acknowledge the fact that this information was known a year ago and include post-2019 cost projections.

This demonstrates the "epistemic closure" of the conservative mind we've been hearing so much about lately.

jm,

Exactly how is the bill going to reduce cost? Do you have any idea of the complex nature of medical economics? I have seen first hand the "reduction" in cost associated with the limited interference of the Feds. The cost of the program will grow to the point that it will bankrupt the country. No matter what the bill says or the assurances of our great politicians. To believe otherwise is very naive.

Jim has no idea how price controls will somehow control costs. His arguments are, fundamentally, just playing a shell game with words. With the ultimate goal of single payer--which also will not reduce costs until health provider price controls are put in place. Which will complete the destruction of the finest healthcare system in the world.

So Jim has no idea how the bill will save costs, but the True Patriots (TM) on the right do?

Please. At least be consistent with your lying.