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Statement of Paul Van de Water on the 2014 Medicare Trustees' Report

"Health reform, along with other factors, has significantly improved Medicare's financial outlook, boosting revenues and making the program more efficient. The HI trust fund's projected exhaustion date of 2030 is 13 years later than the trustees projected before the [ACA]. And the HI program's projected 75-year shortfall of 0.87 percent of taxable payroll is down from last year's estimate of 1.11 percent and much less than the 3.88 percent that the trustees estimated before health reform."

ACA Tax on Insurers Should Not Be Repealed

"Repealing the tax on health insurers would cost about $116 billion over the 2014-2023 period and undercut health reform ... 'Pay-as-you-go' rules would require Congress to offset the cost of repeal by raising other taxes or reducing spending; one likely target would be provisions of the ACA that expand health coverage to 25 million more Americans. In addition, repealing the tax would encourage efforts to repeal other revenue-raising provisions of the ACA, which in turn would require still more painful offsets or increase the budget deficit if Congress failed to offset the cost."

Statement on the 2013 Medicare Trustees' Report

"Health reform has significantly improved Medicare's financial outlook, boosting revenues and making the program more efficient by cutting unnecessary costs. The HI trust fund is now projected to remain solvent nine years longer than before the [ACA] was enacted. Under the trustees' main projection, the HI program's 75-year shortfall is 1.11 percent of taxable payroll -- down from last year's estimate of 1.35 percent of payroll and much less than the 3.88 percent of payroll that the trustees estimated before health reform."

How Obamacare Will Change Employer-Provided Insurance

"The administration's argument for the individual market applies to the employer-based market: No one with health insurance should expect to keep their current plan forever.... 'The clear expectation was and is that the "Cadillac tax" ... will cause those [employers offering] highly generous plans to pare back benefits somewhat ...' [said] Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities ... 'It's not going to affect a large number of people to begin with, but it is significant in the longer run in terms of its potential to hold down health care costs.'"