CCAGW to Congress:$1 Trillion Estimates for Kennedy Bill Pie-in-the-Sky

WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today advised
lawmakers that the June 15, 2009 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) cost
estimates for the Affordable Health Choices Act, Senate Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions Committee Chairman Ted Kennedy`s (D-Mass.) healthcare overhaul
bill, are woefully underestimated. The committee begins marking up the bill
today.

CBO found that for its $1 trillion dollar price tag over a 10-year period, the
Kennedy plan would only insure an additional 16 million people out of the
estimated 50 million people who go without health insurance today. The cost is
equal to a $6,250 annual healthcare premium per individual, which is 33 percent
higher than the annual average premium of $4,700 per person for private
insurance plans.

"The CBO cost estimate is dangerously low, since critically important
information about the bill has been conveniently omitted, including the cost of
expanding of Medicare and the size of the government-run plan," said CCAGW Tom
Schatz. "In addition, Sen. Kennedy`s bill does not address the underlying
problems plaguing the healthcare system. It is an attempt by proponents of a
single-payer plan to seize control of a huge swath of our economy. It defies
logic that Congress and the White House are insisting on creating a
government-run plan when Medicare, the largest government-run plan, is about to
go bankrupt," added Schatz.

"The cost of the stimulus bill, the bank bailouts, the auto takeover, and the
President`s budget will nearly double the national debt in the next 10 years.
Now they want to pile trillions more debt on top of that for a healthcare plan
that will not improve healthcare outcomes or achieve cost-savings without
rationing. The CBO report is a grim warning that taxpayers will be overwhelmed
by the negative fiscal consequences of a government-run plan," concluded Schatz.

In its first year of operation in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. Congress
projected then that the program would cost $12 billion by 1990; however, it
ended up 800 percent greater, at $107 billion. In 2008, the costs were $468
billion and the Medicare Trustees estimated in May that the entitlement program
is on a glide path to bankruptcy by 2017.

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation`s
largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste,
fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.

CCAGW
Leslie K. Paige, 202-467-5334

Copyright Business Wire 2009