As my Cato colleague Chris Edwards has documented, government programs and contracts inevitably cost much more than first projected. This pattern of inaccuracy exists for several reasons, including the fact politicians have an incentive to lowball cost figures. But a big reason for the mistaken numbers is that government budget estimators do not understand the degree to which people will alter their behavior to get their hands on other people’s money. I explained recently on Fox Business network that this means any government-run health care scheme will be much more expensive than we are being told today.
Our friends at Reason TV address this issue in a very compelling three-minute video that looks at how government programs – especially for health care – have cost several times more than politicians claimed when the legislation was first adopted.
[…] not counting cost overruns, which are an inevitable reality with government budgeting, so I think it’s safe to assume that the final cost will be far […]
[…] 2009, for instance, I warned that Obamacare would be much more costly than advertised, so I certainly wasn’t surprised several years later when the numbers began […]
[…] not counting cost overruns, which are an inevitable reality with government budgeting, so I think it’s safe to assume that the final cost will be far […]
[…] not counting cost overruns, which are an inevitable reality with government budgeting, so I think it’s safe to assume that the final cost will be far […]
[…] also cited my Cato colleague Chris Edwards, who has made a more comprehensive (and well-documented) claim that government officials […]
[…] also cited my Cato colleague Chris Edwards, who has made a more comprehensive (and well-documented) claim that government officials […]