The Affordable Care Act and its companion electronic health records system have cost the U.S. more than $73 billion in the nearly five years since their passage--and the cost will only rise, Bloomberg Government reported.
The total also includes the cost of the HealthCare.gov website and its enrollment systems.
BGOV’s analysis shows that costs for both healthcare.gov and the broader reform effort are far greater than anything publicly discussed. They’re also substantially greater than what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) initially estimated health reform would cost by this point, although not what the agency’s more recent piecemeal estimates suggest.
Meanwhile, the changes in health-care financing and delivery on which the money is being spent remain very much in their startup phase.
An expansion of health coverage that has reached millions of previously uninsured Americans still depends on a shaky and apparently incomplete information technology (IT) system.
A planned overhaul of health-care delivery is still experimenting with ways to improve care and reduce costs.
