Former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin says Monday during a conference call that House Democrats are using gimmicks to fabricate the actual costs of their health care legislation. (0:25)
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) discusses the Congressional Budget Office’s review of the Senate’s health care reform bill.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) criticized a meeting between President Obama and the director of the Congressional Budget Office, an organization that provides non-partisan analysis of Congressional proposals. He said that the meeting could compromise the CBO’s independence. (0:37)
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele cites a report by the Congressional Budget Office, which says that the health care reform bill will not insure all Americans or reduce the cost of health care. He says that the government’s health care will be inferior to current coverage. (0:39)
Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office says that healthcare effectiveness measures are meant to assist, not coerce, patient and physician decision making. He goes on to note that there are not enough resources to make every possible treatment available to every possible patient. “We ration everything somehow…usually by price…”
The long term budget outlook for slowing the growth of health care costs was discussed at a hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. Panelist Dr. Peter R. Orszag, Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), gave the analogy of a dysfunctional relationship to illustrate the unsustainable state of the federal budget. Orszag said that, like such a relationship, there was no telling how long the budget would last but the end was bound to be messy. (more…)
