Obamacare to cost slightly less after SCOTUS ruling: CBO
Like all CBO estimates, they're only as good as the numbers they are given. In this case, they are even less reliable because they are guessing about the number of states that opt out of Medicaid coverage under Obamacare.
While it is not yet clear how many states will ultimately opt out of the expansion, the budget office said it now predicted that six million fewer people would be insured by Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people. Half of them, it said, will probably gain private insurance coverage through health insurance exchanges to be established in all states.
On balance, the budget office said, in 2022, "about three million more people will be uninsured" than under its previous estimates. It now says that 30 million people will be uninsured in 2022, against its estimate of 27 million before the Supreme Court decision.
The report estimates that 53 million people are now uninsured and that 60 million would be uninsured in 2022 if the law was repealed, as Republicans in Congress have proposed.
With the expected changes as a result of the court decision, the budget office said the law would cost $84 billion less than it had previously predicted.
"The insurance coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act will have a net cost of $1.168 billion over the 2012-2022 period - compared with $1.252 billion projected in March 2012 for that 11-year period - for a net reduction of $84 billion," or about 7 percent, the budget office said.
In addition, the budget office said that repealing the health care law would add $109 billion to federal budget deficits over the next 10 years. Specifically, it said, repeal of the law would reduce spending by $890 billion and reduce revenues by $1 trillion in the years 2013 to 2022.
The same goes for numbers they are projecting for costs if Obamacare is repealed. That estimate presupposes that the GOP wouldn't pass another health insurance bill that would be cheaper and more efficient.
The bottom line is that Obamacare is still to expensive, too expansive in its coverage, too ambitious in trying to control too much of the health care sector, and too injurious to liberty.