For taxpayers, health tab may not end :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Terry Savage

For taxpayers, health tab may not end :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Terry Savage: "The new health-care legislation that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve is known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. A different version of health-care reform passed the House last month. There will most likely be a 'conference committee' of both chambers named to work out a compromise.

But if the Democrats in the House can muster enough votes, they could simply agree on the Senate version -- thereby ensuring quick action to enact the legislation before the president's State of the Union address Jan. 20."

The price we pay

Any legislation that passes is bound to be costly -- but no one knows how costly it will be. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the Senate version will cost $1 trillion over the next decade.

But then, when Medicare was originally passed in 1967, it was estimated that the hospital insurance (Part A) would cost about $9 billion annually by 1990. By 1990 the actual cost to the government was $67 billion! Since then, Medicare has been expanded to include catastrophic coverage and also Part D, prescription drug benefits.

The point is simply that it's impossible to estimate future costs of such broad legislation with any reliability. And this type of legislation typically is expanded upon over the years.