Medicare Spending Continues to Grow, Despite Obamacare

Hard, cold statistics are putting the lie to Democrats’ claims that the healthcare reform law would cut Medicare and Medicaid spending.

A new report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that both entitlement programs will gobble up a greater share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the next decade, Politico reports. Obamacare’s health insurance subsidies will push government spending on healthcare higher too.

Despite the Affordable Care Act’s $716 billion in Medicare savings over the next 10 years, the CBO estimates that Medicare’s share of GDP will hit 4.3 percent in 2022, up from 3.7 percent next year.

The savings come from reduced increases in payments to providers and Medicare Advantage plans, but the Republican White House candidates Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan scoff at those cuts as a “raid” on Medicare itself.

As for Medicaid spending, the CBO sees it rising to 2.4 percent of GDP in 2022 from 1.7 percent next year.

When you put the three biggest entitlement programs together — Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — they will account for 12.2 percent of GDP in 2022, or 55 percent of total government spending, the CBO forecasts.

And then there are Obamacare’s new health insurance subsidies. The CBO predicts they’ll hit $123 billion by 2022, or 0.5 percent of GDP.