In this five column series, Executive Editor Ryan Fazio explains that despite overwhelming support from young adults, Obamacare will harm them most. Part three will be published this Sunday.

Part one: Why the status quo is bad for young adults

Part two: Obamacare nationalizes regulations that are bad for young adults

Part three: Young adults will have to pay for a massive new entitlement

We already know how a myriad of rigid regulations will disproportionately burden young adults with reduced freedom and higher prices. But in predictable fashion, progressives will respond that of course all people must have comprehensive insurance, and for those who cannot afford it, the government will fund it for them. Its as if the president believes young Americans, who tend to have much lower incomes, should be comforted by the fact that the expensive health plan they will be required to buy might be subsidized by the government if they earn little enough.

But it should certainly not. Whose money do you think the government–one that ran a $1.9 trillion dollar deficit last year, and owes $13 trillion in debt–is spending to subsidize hundreds of billions each year in health care? Certainly not theirs. The fact is that in addition to inflating the price of care for young adults, Congress and the President is saddling the cost of this new entitlement on the backs of young Americans. They will be required not only to pay for themselves, but for the rest of the Congress’ multi-trillion dollar spending binge.

How can this government claim to be looking out for the young when it stewards a deficit of 1/8th of GDP, has no inclination to reform three existing entitlements with a cumulative unfunded liability of up to $100 trillion and growing, and spends its year pushing to add two–subsidies and long term care–new entitlements to boot? Still the president would have you believe that this legislative behemoth will cover tens of millions of uninsured, provide subsidies to families of four making $88,000 per year, and yet “not add a dime to the deficit” over the next ten years. In fact, Democrats originally touted the CBO score saying the bill would reduce the deficit by $138 billion over the next ten years.

If this doesn’t pass the smell test for you, its because it shouldn’t. Already the CBO has found an additional $115 billion in spending to set up the program over the next ten years, nearly erasing the savings. The left has demonized skeptics of the original CBO report, but some, like Douglas Holtz-Eakin, recognized that the CBO omitted the particular $115 billion report months before the CBO did. The error of the CBO report is of course not because its lying or impotent or whatnot, but rather because it is required by law to score proposed bills according to the assumptions given by those who wrote the bill.

That being said, there is still more smoke and mirrors in this law that add to the bill young Americans will have to foot. First, the law takes $109 billion in premiums from the long-term care insurance program over the first 10 years and subtracts it from the deficit, even though that revenue is supposed to be used for the future cost of the insurance program. Second, the bill assumes a 21% reduction in medicare payments to doctors due to a law passed during the 1990s. However, Democrat leadership has vowed to pass a bill overturning these cuts. A “Doc fix” bill that has already passed the house would add another $208 billion to the tab–and that is not even considered a full-scale fix. Third, and probably most egregious is the double counting of medicare cuts. The bill cuts $463 billion from Medicare to pay for the subsidies in the bill, however, the CBO score does not simultaneously acknowledge that the use of these revenues will be cut out from Medicare. In other words the score counts of Medicare funds to pay for Obamacare, without counting the loss of Medicare funds to Medicare.

There is still more I could count, such as the $52 billion from expected Social Security revenue that will be taken from SS to pay for the bill, or the $19 billiion in revenue from the nationalization of student loans (yes, the government took over the entire student loan industry in a health care bill). But I will ignore these costs and others for a moment. If I generously only add in the start-up, doc fix, and medicare costs, it leaves you a whopping $549 billion deficit over the next 10 years from Obamacare. The kicker? The first ten years of the law consist of 10 years of taxes and cuts, and just 6 years of spending. Can you imagine when the program really kicks into gear? Brace yourself.

In 1965, Congressional actuaries estimated Medicare would cost just $3.1 billion in 1970. In 1970, Medicare cost $6.8 billion. In 1967, House analysts estimated the entitlement would cost $12 billion in 1990. In 1990, it cost $110 billion–off by a factor of 10. In the private sector you get sacked for minor miscalculations. For blundering far worse, politicians self-congratulate. The fact is that government has a way of understating the true costs of things because it has incentive too. The bigger the program, the harder those underestimates hit us.

Obamacare is the most grandiose thing to come out of Washington–well–technically, ever. No one, particularly the young who will have to shoulder the burden for decades, should take that for granted. A lot of spending from the law may go to young people–to pay for the higher prices that the government created–but all of it is money that we don’t have. Before passage, the CBO estimated Washington will accumulate $10 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years and that by 2020 total government debt to GDP will reach 100%. Those are levels matched today by only Spain and Greece. Our entire entitlement system is currently piled on the backs of young Americans–and its piled trillions of dollars higher by this reform. This is the future, incarnate. Bad healthcare will be an afterthought when the entitlement system begins to buckle the vitality of our economy. We must change course; and it starts by repealing Obamacare.

Enough said.

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