CBO Fact Checks Clinton Claim Obama Controlled Healthcare Costs

Bill Clinton on Wednesday night said President Barack Obama has kept healthcare costs in check, a claim that has been proven to be demonstrably false. 

“For the last two years, health care spending has grown under four percent for the first time in 50 years,” Clinton said. 

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), though, reports health care spending is on pace to exceed all federal discretionary spending by 2016. 

The nonpartisan Tax Foundation conducted a study and determined that costs associated with Obamacare, especially those concerning Medicare and Medicaid, were “truly unprecedented” and “scary.” 

“In total, healthcare entitlement spending is due to more than double, from $828 billion this year to $1.837 trillion in 2022,” the group said. “This means healthcare spending will overtake all discretionary spending in 2016 – Obama’s last year in office if reelected… This would be truly unprecedented, and scary, since discretionary spending represents the basic functions of government.”

The group “analyzed recent CBO projections of the budget for 2012 to 2022, finding that over the next decade Medicare spending will increase from $550 billion to $1.064 trillion, while Medicaid would more than double from $253 billion to $592 billion.”

Further, CBO projections also mark the first time that health care spending will exceed all other discretionary spending, especially if the exchanges and subsidies that are in Obamacare are triggered and factored in to the projections. 

In addition, new exchanges and subsidies under Obamacare, if triggered, will force mandatory healthcare costs to grow from $25 billion to $181 billion in 2022 and these costs could be even greater since the CBO has discovered that the projected costs of Obamacare could be even greater than initial estimates.