Obama fiscal commission co-chair pans health bill’s impact on costs

But Orszag’s rhetoric on the health bill has shifted from the categorical statements he made during 2009, when trying to sell the legislation. At the time, one of Orszag’s favorite lines, often used by Obama, was: “Health care reform is entitlement reform.” Orszag and Obama argued that their health bill was the best way to address entitlements and deficits.

Now, Orszag has begun to make a more nuanced case.

“Even with enactment of the Affordable Care Act, we remain on an unsustainable fiscal course,” Orszag wrote July 8 on his White House blog. “More needs to be done. But the bottom line is that, after years of going in the wrong long-term fiscal direction, the Affordable Care Act changes our course by enacting substantial, long-term deficit reduction.”

White House officials continue to claim the health bill as a fiscal accomplishment. In a letter to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and top presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett said the health law will “address one of the largest threats to our long term fiscal health.”

Bowles’ comments are similar to those made by Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf, who in March scored the health bill as reducing the deficit by $143 billion over the first 10 years. But Elmendorf called those reductions “small steps.”

“The rising costs of health care will put tremendous pressure on the federal budget during the next few decades and beyond,” Elmendorf wrote on May 28. “In CBO’s judgment, the health legislation enacted earlier this year does not substantially diminish that pressure.”

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