Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn — co-sponsor of the Obamacare alternative that North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr will discuss during a March 31 John Locke Foundation Headliner luncheon — highlights rising government-related health care costs in a new report. The Daily Caller offers details.
According to Coburn, regardless of whether Obamacare delivers on the president’s promises, history can teach two things: “First, the federal government’s spending on health-care programs usually outpaces economic growth… Second, compared with initial government estimates and outlays, most programs have experienced exponential growth in real terms when compared to initial estimates.”
Using government data, in his report Coburn compares the initial spending and participation of each federal health-care program to its recent outlays in inflation adjusted terms.
Coburn, a medical doctor by trade, begins with Medicaid, highlighting that when the program was at its inception in 1966, it cost $800 million and had an enrollment of 4 million people. In 2012, Medicaid spent $250.5 billion on 55.6 million people — a cost increase of 31,212.5 percent and enrollment increase of 1,290 percent over 46 years.
Likewise, according to Coburn’s report, the various aspects of Medicare have skyrocketed in cost and enrollments. In 1967, the program spent $2.8 billion; in 2012, it spent $471.8 billion — a 16,750 percent increase in cost in 45 years. From 1966 to 2010, the enrollees in Medicare Part A, B and C increased by 149.2 percent, 148.9 percent and 807.9 percent, respectively; and from 1974 to 2008, the number of End Stage Renal Disease enrollees increased by 4,022 percent.