Obama’s $272 Million “Reform” v. One Health Care Reg

Who wins?  That’s easy, the cost of the President’s new health care regulation for accountable care organizations easily dwarfs his touted reg reform efforts. 

The informal final rule clocks in at 696 pages, more than 50 percent larger than the proposed rule.  These pages contain hefty costs as well, with “ongoing annual operating costs of $451 million for CYs 2012 through 2015.”  We don’t know what the paperwork burden is because the President’s health care bill exempted the regulation from any OMB paperwork review.

Let’s put this health care rule in perspective.  Cass Sunstein and President Obama have spoken at length about reform efforts to promote “economic growth, innovation, competiveness, and job creation.”  How does a half billion dollar regulatory burden promote job creation in a stagnant economy?  Strangely, in 696 pages they couldn’t devote any time to pretending that the rule would create jobs or how the rule could jeopardize thousands of jobs.

The efforts of President Obama’s regulatory reform, eliminating milk from oil spill prevention rules, vapor recovery deregulation, and “positive train control systems” have been praised constantly by the administration.  But, combined their annualized savings total $272 million. 

Today’s health care rule easily trumps that figure and the new burdens put deregulatory reforms to shame.  For some more perspective, the total regulatory burden for 2011 (excluding today’s rule) is $81.3 billion.  The savings from President Obama’s “Big Three” amount to approximately one-third of one percent.

For the administration, it’s always one step forward (if we’re lucky) and several steps backwards.  Regrettably, the direction of this administration is also the general direction of the country.