Comments on: Expenditures for Health Programs Always Outpace Early Estimates

By: Projected Health Care Costs vs Actual « Democratic Thinker

Projected Health Care Costs vs Actual « Democratic Thinker — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 02:20:48 +0000

[...] | Expenditures for Health Programs Always Outpace Early Estimates Aug 20, 2009 by Devon Herrick Government has a poor record of predicting the cost of health [...]

By: Maggie's Farm

Maggie's Farm — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:12:14 +0000

Bruce’s Two-Bits…

A good time to be a jihadist “Obama has already gone a long way towards ensuring that interrogators cannot use any technique that might reasonably be expected to extract information from hardened terrorists.”
The CIA Report: What Does It Say?

The …

By: pat

pat — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:04:20 +0000

Are these the projected and actual costs of the first full year of the program? Or are the projections/actuals some years in the future?

By: Instapundit » Blog Archive » THE OBAMACARE DEFICIT BLOWOUT: “The press corps has noticed the Congressional Budget Office’s est…

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:29:15 +0000

[...] more, judging by the experience with Medicare and other programs, actual spending will be much higher than even these [...]

By: No Runny Eggs » Blog Archive » We’ve Only Just Begun

No Runny Eggs » Blog Archive » We’ve Only Just Begun — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:52:29 +0000

[...] I also say “at least” because there is historical evidence that the first year of all major government health programs have been significantly underestimated. Take a look at this graph from John Goodman’s Health Policy Blog: [...]

By: russ

russ — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:00:54 +0000

It just isn't in health care the federal government screws up estimates on.... Consider this Cato commentary from five years ago by Jenifer Zeigler... $9 Trillion Didn't End Poverty -- What to Do?

By: Health Care Costs Often Exceed Expectations « Free Market Mojo

Health Care Costs Often Exceed Expectations « Free Market Mojo — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:19:18 +0000

[...] HT: John Goodman’s Health Policy Blog [...]

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:10:35 +0000

Fascinating chart.

By: Devon Herrick

Devon Herrick — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:46:21 +0000

I noticed one interesting point to this analysis. These are programs for which the government has little control over demand. Yet it has estimating a cost far into the future. A case in point is the Hospital Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) fund. The DSH fund is essentially throwing money at hospitals for providing charity care. Hospitals have little incentive to vet which patients are truly needy, and collect from those that aren’t needy when the government is willing to spend billions on hospitals that treat indigent patients.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:10:39 +0000

And the Massachusetts Plan is just getting started. I like to think of Government plans like diesel engines, sometimes they take awhile to warm up, but from then on you can always count on them to run up the public debt.

Since it is a state program, I don’t think that the Massachusetts will threaten the frightening expenditure growth of Medicare and Medicaid, but if some of the current plans in Congress get passed, which resemble the Mass. Plan (exchange, individual mandate, guaranteed access, mandates), then we are in for a wild ride.