Cost estimates for health law's subsidies boosted by $111 billion

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Mar 6 2012

The new estimate, which represents an estimated 30 percent jump for an eight-year period, triggered calls during hearings last week by key House Republicans for the Obama administration to explain the number.

The Associated Press: Soaring Cost Estimate Prompts Health Law Doubts
Cost estimates for a key portion of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law have ballooned by $111 billion from last year's budget, and a senior Republican lawmaker on Friday demanded an explanation. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., wants to know by Monday why the estimated cost of helping millions of middle-class Americans buy health insurance has jumped by about 30 percent for an eight-year period, from 2014-2021 (Alonso-Zaldivar, 3/2).

CQ HealthBeat: Camp Presses Geithner On $111 Billion Boost In Subsidy Estimate
Republicans are convinced that subsidies to help the uninsured buy coverage under the health care law will far exceed original estimates. So when the Obama administration quietly boosted its eight-year estimate of subsidy costs by $111 billion in its fiscal 2013 budget proposal, GOP lawmakers pounced. House Republicans Dave Camp of Michigan and Michael C. Burgess of Texas asked Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to detail the reasons for the increase at two hearings this week, but came away dissatisfied with her response (Reichard, 3/2).

Modern Healthcare: Camp Questions Jump In Exchange Subsidies
In a letter, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to explain why the Obama administration's budget includes a 30% increase in subsidies for health insurance exchanges over last year's budget. The letter from Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) (PDF), chairman of the tax panel that has jurisdiction over Medicare, said a comparison of the budget tables from the fiscal 2012 and 2013 budgets showed an increase of about $111 billion for the same period: 2014-2021 (Zigmond, 3/2).

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.