Hannity falsely claimed Senate Finance health bill would add $1 trillion to deficit

Written by Christine Schwen

Published

In discussing the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) score of the Chairman's mark, as amended, of the Senate Finance Committee's health reform legislation -- which found that the legislation would result in an $81 billion net reduction of the deficit over 10 years -- Fox News' Sean Hannity falsely asserted that the bill will add $1 trillion to the deficit. Hannity and his guests have demonstrated a pattern of misrepresenting or ignoring CBO analyses in order to attack progressive proposals.

From the October 7 edition of Fox News' Hannity:

HANNITY: All right. Let me move on to health care. The CBO scores the Baucus bill. But these are preliminary numbers. We really don't know what this bill is going to look like. But it still won't insure, according to their own estimates, 25 million Americans. So my point is, what's the point? Why are we going to spend a trillion dollars?

JUDITH MILLER (Fox News contributor): Come on, Sean. I think that the CBO estimate is good news for the Democrats, who thought that it was going to cover even fewer people and cost a great deal more.

HANNITY: You think this is good -- another trillion dollars on top of the $1.4 trillion deficit this year?

MILLER: Look, I don't think it's good news. But I think the Democrats think that it's going to help their cause.

Hannity repeats pattern of misrepresenting CBO

The CBO found that the legislation would reduce the deficit by $81 billion over 10 years. The October 7 CBO analysis found:

According to CBO and JCT's assessment, enacting the Chairman's mark, as amended, would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $81 billion over the 2010-2019 period (see Table 1). The estimate includes a projected net cost of $518 billion over 10 years for the proposed expansions in insurance coverage. That net cost itself reflects a gross total of $829 billion in credits and subsidies provided through the exchanges, increased net outlays for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and tax credits for small employers; those costs are partly offset by $201 billion in revenues from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans and $110 billion in net savings from other sources. The net cost of the coverage expansions would be more than offset by the combination of other spending changes that CBO estimates would save $404 billion over the 10 years and other provisions that JCT and CBO estimate would increase federal revenues by $196 billion over the same period.1 In subsequent years, the collective effect of those provisions would probably be continued reductions in federal budget deficits. Those estimates are all subject to substantial uncertainty. [emphasis added]

Hannity and his guests have a history of misrepresenting CBO scores in order to attack progressive proposals. Hannity and his guests have repeatedly misrepresented or ignored CBO scores in order to attack Democratic health care legislation and other progressive initiatives.