MASSDEVICE ON CALL — President Barack Obama’s proposed changes to Medicare and other program could help significantly reduce spending, lower the national debt and cut deficit spending over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s calculations.
If enacted, President Obama’s policies would cut about $1.1 trillion in deficit spending between 2014 and 2023, compared with the CBO’s baseline for those years, the office reported last week. Deficits would initially grow between 2013 and 2015 but decrease by increasing amounts thereafter, the CBO said.
Healthcare reform would also help lower the national debt to 70% of GDP by 2023, compared with the 74% baseline projected by the CBO, according to the report.
In particular the President’s Medicare reforms would save the federal healthcare program $364 billion over the course of about 10 years, Healthwatch reported. The CBO estimate was generally in line with the White House’s $370 billion figure. The cost of the healthcare reform programs is likely to be about $97 billion less than the White House estimated, the CBO added.
The CBO further projected that the per-patient cost of Medicare benefits would continue to increase slowly, where the White House had projected rapid growth.
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