Krauthammer falsely suggests Senate bill won't reduce deficits after 2019

Written by Jocelyn Fong

Published

Echoing a false Republican talking point about the Senate health care reform bill, Charles Krauthammer stated on Fox News that if “you start in 2014 when the benefits kick in and you go out ten years, then the cost is not slightly under $1 trillion. It's $1.8 trillion or $2.5 trillion, which means it will blow an enormous hole in the deficit.” However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the bill will continue to reduce deficits beyond the 10-year budget window that ends in 2019.

Krauthammer claimed Senate bill would “blow an enormous hole in the deficit”

From the December 21 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier:

KRAUTHAMMER: [I]t supposedly costs $850 billion over ten years. But 98 percent of the costs of the bill are in the last six years. So it's a trick. If you actually look at real ten years, you start in 2014 when the benefits kick in and you go out ten years, then the cost is not slightly under $1 trillion. It's $1.8 trillion or $2.5 trillion, which means it will blow an enormous hole in the deficit. And everybody knows this."

But CBO projected that deficit reductions would continue after 2019

CBO: Bill yields “a net reduction in federal deficits of $132 billion” over 10 years. From CBO's December 19 cost estimate of the Senate bill incorporating the manager's amendment:

CBO and JCT estimate that, on balance, the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act incorporating the manager's amendment would yield a net reduction in federal deficits of $130 billion over the 2010-2019 period.

CBO expects bill to reduce deficit by more than $650 billion during decade after 2019. CBO also estimated on December 20 that the bill will continue to reduce the deficit beyond the 10-year budget window that ends in 2019 “with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range between one-quarter percent and one-half percent of GDP.” As FoxNews.com itself reported in a different article about a previous CBO estimate of the original Senate bill, a deficit reduction of one-quarter percent of GDP amounts to “as much as $650 billion.”

CBO: Bill “would probably continue to reduce budget deficits” after 2029. CBO also noted that it “has not extrapolated estimates further into the future, because the uncertainties surrounding them are magnified even more,” but it said that “the legislation would probably continue to reduce budget deficits” beyond 2029. From CBO's cost estimate:

CBO has not extrapolated estimates further into the future, because the uncertainties surrounding them are magnified even more. However, in view of the projected net savings during the decade following the 10-year budget window, CBO anticipates that the legislation would probably continue to reduce budget deficits relative to those under current law in subsequent decades, assuming that all of its provisions would continue to be fully implemented. Pursuant to section 311 of S. Con. Res. 70, CBO estimates that enacting the legislation would not cause a net increase in deficits in excess of $5 billion in any of the four 10-year periods beginning after 2019.