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Back Channels: Time to stop and determine the true cost of health plan | Philadelphia Inquirer | 12/13/2009 (http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/20091213_Back_Channels__Time_to_stop_and_determine _the_true_cost_of_health_plan.html - broken link)
The Democrats' $1 trillion figure comes from a 2010-19 projection that is really a six-year estimate because expenses don't start until 2014. (Republicans tried the same gimmick with the Medicare prescription-drug benefit.) Rework the numbers for the first 10 years of actual costs, as Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) has done, and the figure rises to $2.5 trillion. But that's just 40 percent of the cost, Cannon says.
The other 60 percent comes from the individual mandates - not currently counted as government revenue or expense because you'll pay an insurer, or an exchange, or some public-option entity directly. That's more sleight of hand, Cannon says, that wasn't allowed when the Clinton health-care plan was scored in the early '90s.
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