GAO: National Debt Would Soar Without Obamacare

Washington, D.C. – The Government Accountability Office, the Federal Agency tasked with auditing federal spending, has concluded that if the President’s health care law the Patient Protection and Affordability Act is not implemented.

A report titled “The Federal Government’s Long-Term Fiscal Outlook” states that several parts of the health plan “were designed to control the growth of health care costs. The full implementation and effectiveness of these cost-control provisions… would slow the growth in federal health care spending over the long term.”

If the legislation were thrown out, though, the forecast becomes considerably more gloomy. The report does not go into detail if the law in invalidated but it gives the scenarios of the law’s cost cutting measures being sidestepped or removed by Congress.

The report states,

“if key cost-control measures in the law, and other automatic cuts to Medicare spending baked into current law, are ignored, or overridden by Congress, the implications for the national debt are vast.”

The GAO specifically said,

“These concerns are reflected in our Alternative simulation, which, consistent with CBO’s and the CMS Actuary’s alternative scenarios, assumes that certain cost-containment mechanisms are not sustained over the long term. Spending on health care grows much more rapidly under this more pessimistic set of assumptions. Absent changes to these programs, spending on Medicare and Medicaid under the Alternative simulation grows to over 8 percent of GDP by 2030.”

The Patient Protection and Affordability Act is in front of the Supreme Court right now which is expected to hand down its ruling by June. While Obama has stated that he believes the law will be upheld, the President is already starting to go on the offensive against the “unelected” court.