ObamaCare ruling to increase budget deficit?

Jul 4
07:32

2012

Ramyasadasivam

Ramyasadasivam

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With the Supreme Court upholding the worst parts of ObamaCare, many are again speculating on the budgetary impacts of the law.

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We know that the price tag for the law was $1.76 trillion dollars,ObamaCare ruling to increase budget deficit? Articles according to a revised estimate by Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published back in March; up from the original estimate of under $1 trillion when the law was passed in March 2010. Charles Blahous found that the law would add $340 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years.

Financial Year

But the CBO now says that the laws impact on the deficit, given last week’s Supreme Court ruling, is unclear, but they are diving into the numbers:

Budget Deficit

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that it will “take some time” to assess the budget impact of a Supreme Court ruling upholding President Obama’s healthcare reform.

“CBO is in the process of reviewing the Supreme Court’s decision related to the Affordable Care Act to assess the effect on CBO’s projections of federal spending and revenue under current law. We expect that this assessment will probably take some time,” CBO Director Doug Elmendorf said in a terse statement.

There is uncertainty in how the Supreme Court’s ruling limiting the ability of the federal government to force states to expand Medicaid coverage will play out. […]The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the government cannot withhold all Medicaid funding from states that do not agree to expand Medicaid coverage to more adults. If the 26 states that have sued to overturn Obama’s healthcare reform all refuse to expand Medicaid, then federal spending would conceivably be smaller.