As a watchdog, CBO fails

Former BHI intern, SUNY-Albany PhD candidate and owner of the Sociological Imagination, Josh McCabe doubts whether the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) lives up to its reputation as a fiscal watchdog, particularly when it comes to health care.

In reality, the CBO is underestimating their underestimation. Skopol’s fiscal watchdogs must be asleep on the job. Evidence from my home state of Massachusetts confirms my view that healthcare costs will only vastly increase if the package passes. Despite the fact that Obama is basically proposing a federal version of the plan already in place in Massachusetts, nobody likes to talk about the Massachusetts healthcare experiment for partisan reasons. Republicans don’t want to talk about it because it was pushed by then Republican Governor Romney while Democrats don’t want to talk about it because it’s largely a failure. Despite assurances otherwise, the number of new coverage mandates has continued to expand and now Governor Patrick wants to institute ad hoc price controls on insurance rates because nothing has been done to curb rising costs.

Read the whole blog entry.