Friday, January 31, 2014

The Democrats need to push back against the rightwing myths.

One of the myths propagated by the rightwing is that the people paying higher premiums are paying for the subsides. That is not true.

...The Cost Of Subsidies (click here)
But the authors of the Affordable Care Act didn't want the subsidies to become a drain on the Treasury and add to the deficits. So they included provisions designed to offset the cost of the subsidies.

MIT , who helped develop the law, says about half the costs are offset by projected savings in Medicare payments to insurers and hospitals. Another quarter is offset by added taxes on medical-device makers and drug companies.

"The other source of revenue is a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans," he says. "Those families with incomes above $250,000 a year will now have to pay more in Medicare payroll taxes."

Those provisions actually make the bill a net positive for the federal budget, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. By the CBO's accounting, Obamacare will produce a surplus. Gruber says the law will "actually lower the deficit by about $100 billion over the next decade and by $1 trillion in the decade after."...