CBO: Repealing Obamacare would increase deficit by $109 billion

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

Repealing all of President Barack Obama’s health care law would increase the federal budget deficit by about $109 billion from 2013 to 2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

House Republicans have voted more than 30 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, claiming the law will increase the deficit, hurt job growth, and make health care more expensive. But in a letterto House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) the CBO explained that the latest repeal bill, H.R. 6079, would reduce spending by $890 billion but slash revenues by $1 trillion.

“Deficits would be increased under H.R. 6079 because the net savings from eliminating the insurance coverage provisions would be more than offset by the combination of other spending increases and revenue reductions,” CBO director Douglas W. Elmendorf explained.

H.R. 6079 was passed in the House on July 11, but like the many repeal bills before it, has no chance of surviving the Democratic-led Senate.

Previously, the CBO had estimated that repealing the Affordable Care Act would increase the national budget deficit by $940 billion. But it revised its estimate in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in June, which allowed states to opt out of the law’s Medicaid expansion.

“What we know from today’s CBO report, as well as from similar reports from CBO and the Medicare actuary, is that the new health care law is dramatically increasing health care spending and costs – costs to our economy, costs to taxpayers, and costs to states,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in a statement. “In addition, today’s report also shows that taxes will increase by more than $1 trillion under Obamacare. The House has already acted to repeal this deeply flawed law and the Senate should do the same.”