Given the magnitude of the structural deficit, it is laughable that Democrats actually boast that Obama’s health plan would save $138 billion cumulatively over 10 years.

By Frank Donatelli Special to Roll Call

If everyone in America, other than President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats, is glum over the passage of “Obamacare,” there is a silver lining: The bill’s passage will finally force the country to face our dire fiscal circumstances and bring the kind of clarifying election that could lead to America’s fiscal salvation. Or not.

Even before passage of Obamacare, here are the fiscal facts that America faces in 2010: Our deficit will be more than $1 trillion for the second year in a row. Our cumulative national debt is careening toward the $13 trillion mark, and it will reach at least $16 trillion by the end of a second Obama administration.

The amount of interest that the government paid on our debt last year was $319 billion, more than we spent on space exploration, transportation and education combined. That number could easily double in the next several years, especially if the government loses its AAA bond rating.

On top of that, Medicare is going broke. The latest report of the actuaries responsible for managing the program noted that the current insolvency date is now 2017, conveniently the year after Obama leaves office, if he gets a second term. Obamacare promises to cut $500 billion out of this program, not to save Medicare, but rather to start yet another entitlement. Without substantial program reform, passage of Obamacare will only hasten the insolvency of Medicare.

Remember the story of the liberal who throws a rope to a drowning man but, before reeling him in, leaves in search of someone else to save?

Given the magnitude of the structural deficit, it is laughable that Democrats actually boast that Obama’s health plan would save $138 billion cumulatively over 10 years. That equals roughly five weeks of current deficit spending by the administration. That figure assumes that against all evidence Congress actually imposes a tax on high-benefit health care plans on Star Date 2018, reduces payments to doctors and other providers, and enacts many other things that it doesn’t have the courage to do now.

FULL STORY

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