Audio here: Cato Daily Podcast Dec 10 2009: Recounting the Cost of Obamacare

I listened to the Dec 10th Cato Daily Podcast on my run earlier this week.
Learned quite  a few things:

1.The Cost estimates from the CBO for the healthcare bills only look at gov’t costs, not at costs imposed/transferred to private sector.

2. Meaning for the private sector mandates in the bill, requiring private individuals and employers spend their money on health insurance – we have no estimate of what the impact/cost/savings (haha) will be.

3. 8 Democratic Caucus Senators sent an open letter to Senator Reid in October saying they didn’t want to vote/consider the healthcare reform without complete cost estimate from the CBO.  In December the Senate took it up without a complete cost estimate.  The letter seems to have been forgotten and the 8 Senators seem not to be following through.

4. The CBO did provide a complete cost estimate for the Clinton Healthcare plan in 1994. But hasn’t on the current healthcare ‘reform’ plans.