During much of the debate over health care, the costs of the program have been brushed aside due to the urgency of getting the legislation passed. Through it all, politicians have looked to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office to lay out the true costs of these massive government programs. But when the final tab heads back to Congress, the price tag can be little more than wishful thinking on behalf of clever accounting techniques.

The Daily Caller reported on these inaccurate estimates. In the article, Donald Marron – former Deputy Director of the CBO – explained that “everyone should know that any number will be either too high or too low.” That’s unsettling when congressional decisions about billions of taxpayer dollars are based on these estimates. Why did Congress predict that the original Medicare hospital insurance program would cost $9 billion annually by 1990, when it actually cost $67 billion?

The answer is human behavior. Just like the original Medicare estimates, the current bill does not factor in a myriad of potential changes in things from debt to policy changes and future health cost inflation. And as with other programs, it has been proven that when the costs of health care are removed from the consumers – in this case, the patients – and placed on the American taxpayer, spending increases dramatically.

Even more alarming are the accounting tricks being used to hide spending and taxes. As the Daily Caller stated, “Congress usually asks CBO to judge a bill’s budget impact over 10 years. In the case of health-care reform, Congress is seeking to fudge the budget impact of the program by starting the program in 2013. But the CBO’s 10-year estimates start with 2010, so that they actually include costs for seven program years.” At year 10 of the proposed Senate plan the CBO’s estimates of the bill’s cost are dramatically higher, meaning the Senate bill could run well over $2 trillion during the second decade of the program.