The New York Times reported today that the Democrats “hit a rough patch Friday in their push for sweeping health care legislation” when “a top Medicare official” declared that their proposal would raise, not lower, health care costs.
The Medicare official … said that total national health spending would increase slightly as a result of the Senate bill, put together by the majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. President Obama has repeatedly said that one of his top goals is to slow the growth of health costs.
Richard S. Foster, the chief actuary of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Friday that under Mr. Reid’s bill national health spending from 2010 to 2019 would total $35.5 trillion. That is $234 billion, or 0.7 percent, more than the amount projected under current law, he added.
So, in the Times’s telling $234 billion is only a slight increase. How much additional spending, I wonder, is required for the Times to regard an increase as un-slight.
