The deeper look into the recently passed ObamaCare continues to yield “surprises”.  I put “surprises” in quotes, because to those who took the time to actually think about what was being proposed and the institution doing it, none of this really comes as a surprise.

For instance – does it surprise anyone that large companies might drop their health care coverage because the incentive to keep it is less than the incentive to drop it?  The new law actually makes it cheaper for Verizon, AT&T and Deere to pay a penalty and drop coverage than to continue to pay it.

It should certainly come as no surprise, then, that the monstrosity the Democratic Congress passed might cost more than they claimed originally.  Remember this is the second upward revision by CBO.  In March CBO jacked the cost up from $788 billion to $940 billion.  Now that CBO has had the opportunity to actually read and study the entire bill and consider its cost implications at leisure it has found about $105 billion in additional spending necessary to “fund discretionary programs overhaul” and an additional $10 to $20 billion (always go with the higher number in cases like this) for “administrative costs to fund the overhaul”.  This revision puts us over a trillion in cost over 10 years – the figure opponents claimed the cost would be while $788 was being touted by Democrats.

While this comes as no surprise – at least to me (trust me, there’s going to be a lot more increased cost found in this absurd bill) – the following made me to laugh out loud and caused others to stare as I did so:

But a Democratic leadership aide on Capitol Hill said the Congress will have to stay within the budget.

“Just like other authorized programs, the discretionary programs in health reform will need to compete for funds within set budgetary limits,” the aide said.

You just can’t make some of this stuff up.  And I do wonder if he said it with a straight face.

~McQ