" It doesn't really matter what the CBO says it will cost now, because government estimates of how much things cost almost always turn out to be wrong. And wrong on the short side.
If history is any guide, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will cost not $900 billion or $1.76 trillion but some number in excess of both of them combined.
In 2009, the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee issued a report looking at the initial cost estimates versus actual costs of other government health-care programs.
It shows that in 1965, when Medicare hospital insurance was enacted, the House Ways and Means Committee projected that its cost in 1990 would be $9 billion annually. The actual cost in 1990 was $67 billion.
In 1966, a broader Medicare program came into being. Its 1990 cost was estimated at $12 billion. The actual cost in 1990 was $110 billion.
Massachusetts' 2006 health-care plan, equally unlovingly called Romneycare, was to cost the state $472 million in 2008, according to early estimates. The actual 2008 cost was $628 million."
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