Deer Hunters Net

Harry Reid struggles with math as well as with common sense in this clip from yesterday, which highlights Reid’s argument against considering tort reform as part of the overhaul of the American health-care system. Reid gets his numbers wrong, gets his scale wrong, and in the process admits that the actual cost of the Baucus plan is not $829 billion but $2 trillion:

SENATOR HARRY REID: He talked about CBO saying that there would be $54 billion saved each year if we put caps on medical malpractice and put some restrictions — tort reform — $54 billion. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn’t it, Mr. President? The answer is yes. But remember, we’re talking about $2 trillion, $54 billion compared to $2 trillion. You can do the math. We can all do the math. It’s a very small percent.

First, the actual scale for the CBO analysis is ten years, not each year. That scale follows the Congressional stage-setting of costs over the next ten years for ObamaCare in order to determine the impact on the deficit. With that in mind, remember too that the $54 billion is what the CBO expects in deficit savings, not overall savings to the health-care industry, which is what the Senate and the House claim they’re trying to accomplish. The overall savings come to at least $110 billion over that same period, perhaps as high as $135 billion, or about 0.5% of the entire cost of the industry — which may still be a small percentage, but is significant in terms of actual money spent. It would come to over $1000 per family in the first ten years.