Yes, there it is in black and white in footnote f on p. 33 of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) official report on the proposed American Health Care Act, aka Trumpcare. Between now and 2026 spending by the Social Security Administration is projected to decline by $3 billion if Trumpcare passes. This is due to a projected 1 out of 830 people dying who would not under the status quo, this based on a study of what happened to death rates in Massachusetts after Romneycare came in. The projected deaths are about 17,000 in 2018 and up to about 29,000 in 2026.
Another great thing? There will be a reduction in accumulated deficits of about $300 billion, with a reduction of revenues of about $0.9 trillion and a reduction of outlays of about $1.2 trillion. The former will be due to cuts in taxes on high income people while the latter will be due to eliminating subsidies to help poorer people pay for health insurance on the exchanges as well as cutbacks in Medicaid spending for even poorer people. How fortunate can we get?
Barkley Rosser
Nice article. I referred to it in a comment at Econolog. Hopefully you would approve. Either way, thank you.
ReplyDeletehttp://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2017/03/this_is_mislead.html
BTW, of course Social Security is not in a state of crisis and does not need saving, so that is a bit of a hype. But the projection that there will be lower outlays due to more people dying certainly holds.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jerry.