Two of the central promises of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law are unlikely to be fulfilled, Medicare's independent economic expert told Congress on Wednesday.(Read the full text of "Medicare official doubts health care law savings".)
The landmark legislation probably won't hold costs down, and it won't let everybody keep their current health insurance if they like it, Chief Actuary Richard Foster told the House Budget Committee. His office is responsible for independent long-range cost estimates.
Foster's assessment came a day after Obama in his State of the Union message told lawmakers that he's open to improvements in the law, but unwilling to rehash the health care debate of the past two years. Republicans want to repeal the landmark legislation that provides coverage to more than 30 million people now uninsured, but lack the votes.
...The comments Wednesday were unusually direct because Foster generally delivers his analysis in complicated technical memos.
Those points mirror some of the issues raised by Dr. Milton Wolf in his OpEd from last fall, "ObamaCare's Unkeepable Promises".
Let's hope more people start raising these questions, both inside and outside of government.
(Via Dr. Beth Haynes.)
