GAO: National Debt Would Skyrocket If ACA 'Obamacare' Not Implemented

 

The Government Accountability Office, which audits federal spending, has concluded that the national debt would rise precipitously if President Obama's health care legislation doesn't go into effect. 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 about the consequences of an invalidated law -- but as TPM reports, it clearly implies that "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...