Obama Budget Rigs Healthcare Numbers — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

Well, there is that honesty factor.

Obama Budget Rigs Healthcare Numbers — The American, A Magazine of Ideas:

"For the first time by any administration in memory, the Obama budget forecast rejects the Medicare Trustees’ projections for long-run healthcare cost growth. Why would the White House do this?

The Obama administration’s fiscal year 2011 budget continues a pattern of ignoring independent analysis and rigging economic assumptions to meet political goals. For the first time by any administration in memory, the Obama budget forecast rejects the Medicare Trustees’ projections for long-run healthcare cost growth. The reason: the Trustees’ projections undercut the administration’s narrative that increased federal control over private sector healthcare could painlessly reduce Medicare and Medicaid costs. The Obama budget instead assumes long-term health cost growth at twice the rate projected by the Trustees.

The White House’s assumptions are factually implausible. Worse, they threaten to politicize the Social Security and Medicare Trustees, whose process for estimating entitlement costs has until now stood out for its lack of political influence."