Deficit Reduction: Democratic Proposals Reduce Deficit Over Next 10 Years

by Press Staff (The third topic of today's bipartisan White House health insurance reform meeting is deficit reduction.)

Democratic health reform proposals will not add to the deficit – not one dime – now or in the future. In fact, the health reform plans passed by each chamber and proposed by the President actually reduce the deficit over the next 10 years and in the following decade.

The American people want reform – and they expect Congress to make hard choices to honestly pay for that reform and not just borrow the money.  We’ve done that by:

  • Focusing spending on the highest needs;
  • Ensuring that the reforms contain substantial proposals to reform care delivery and winnow fat from the system, while expanding access and care coordination; that includes payments to reward high quality care in Medicare, while improving benefits;
  • Limiting growth in health spending;  and
  • Identifying appropriate revenues to finance the remaining costs.
The bottom line is that Democratic health reform proposals actually reduce the deficit in the next ten years by more than $100 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office – and do so even after expanding coverage to approximately 95 percent of all Americans.

More significantly, CBO notes that, after 2020 – when we need deficit reduction the most – health reform as envisioned by the President will reduce the deficit even further.

  • In the decade after 2019, CBO projects that health reform reduces the deficit by as much as one-half of one percent of the national economy.
  • That means deficit reduction of up to one trillion dollars or more.