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Cross-posted from the OMB Blog.
A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) letter released yesterday has sparked a new round of old questions about the cost of the recently enacted health insurance reform law, the Affordable Care Act. The letter simply updates CBO’s calculation of the size of discretionary authorizations included in the legislation.
CBO’s tally, which is not included in its estimate of the cost of the law, has led some to erroneously conclude that the law includes more spending and less deficit reduction than CBO has previously reported.
As I have said before and independent analysts have echoed, this is incorrect:
The bottom line remains the same: the Affordable Care Act is the largest deficit reduction package enacted in over a decade according to CBO. It will reduce deficits by more than $100 billion in the current decade and more than $1 trillion in the decade after that — and that will not change.
Peter R. Orszag is Director of the Office of Management and Budget