Thursday, January 6, 2011

Administration Calls CBO “Dead Wrong” on Health Care Estimates

Yesterday the New England Journal of Medicine published an interview with HHS Secretary Sebelius about the health care overhaul.  In that interview, the Secretary harshly criticized the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for some of its estimates regarding the effects of preventive measures, an exchange printed below.

Iglehart:  What value does the department place on prevention services?  Are they cost savers or mostly beneficial to population health?

Sebelius:  In our view, prevention measures, such as reducing tobacco use, are cost savers.  The Congressional Budget Office refuses to score a reduction in tobacco use as a cost saver, but I think [that] is dead wrong, because it would have a huge impact on the prevalence of cancer, heart disease, chronic lung disease, and asthma, all of which are cost drivers.

Given that the Administration and Democrats in Congress are claiming that repeal of the health care law will increase the deficit, and citing CBO cost estimates in making that assertion, Secretary Sebelius and others need to answer a key question:  If the Administration believes CBO is “dead wrong” about the budgetary effects of preventive care, why don’t they also believe CBO is “dead wrong” when claiming the health care law will reduce the deficit?

Republicans have been clear about where the fault in the scoring process lies – not with CBO officials, but with the Democratic majority, which forced CBO to score the bill using phony budgetary assumptions to claim the law reduces the deficit. (Or, to put it more bluntly, “Garbage in, garbage out.”)  In fact, last June CBO released an analysis stating that most of the major spending reductions will be difficult to sustain for a long period.”  Likewise, Medicare’s chief actuary went so far as to encourage individuals to ignore the estimates included in the annual trustees report, and view an alternative scenario instead, because the official estimates included unrealistic savings provisions from the health care law that the actuary believes will never take effect.