The CBO Is Almost, But Not Quite, Useless

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Economist Paul Krugman is well-known for his pro-Democrat stances. Recently, he’s claimed that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has said that if the Individual Mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, is repealed, 22 million Americans will “lose” their health insurance. What he doesn’t say is that the vast majority of those 22 million people are simply opting out. They are choosing not to have health insurance. But here’s the problem with CBO forecasts: they’re usually wrong.  And they’re wrong in almost the exact same way. Why are the CBO forecasts so bad? Why do they consistently get it wrong in such a consistent way? And what does this mean for our economy? James Harrigan and Antony Davies discuss this and more in this week’s episode of Words and Numbers.

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Antony Davies

Antony Davies

Antony Davies is associate professor of economics at Duquesne University and Chief Academic Officer at FreedomTrust.

He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

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