ObamaCare Cost Increase Triggers House GOP Inquiry

The Republican chairman of the U.S. House tax-writing committee questioned why Obama administration spending estimates for insurance subsidies under the health-care law rose by $111 billion from a year ago.

President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget request, released Feb. 13, projected that subsidies for low-income and working-class families would total $478 billion through 2021. The administration pegged the cost at $367 billion over the same period in its fiscal 2012 budget proposal.

The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Republican Dave Camp of Michigan, asked the Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, Kathleen Sebelius, to explain the change in a budget hearing Tuesday. Sebelius didn’t have an answer, saying the estimate appears in the Treasury Department’s budget. Camp followed up with a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today.

The increase “cannot be explained by legislative changes or new economic assumptions, and therefore must reflect substantial changes in underlying assumptions” about the way the subsidies would work, Camp wrote.

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[Try not to laugh out loud-- Editor]