Wait a minute. You’re telling me a plan to insure an additional thirty million people won’t actually cut the deficit as promised? I’m shocked. For sure I thought common sense and basic financial principles would be defied by this miraculous piece of legislation.

You see, Democrats have appropriated the same $500 billion twice: The first time for savings, the second for funding the expense of covering millions of additional Americans at once. In a move that would make Bernie Madoff proud, they’re spending the same $500 billion twice.

CBO has been asked for additional information about the projected effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), incorporating the manager’s amendment, on the federal budget and on the balance in the Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund, from which Medicare Part A benefits are paid. Specifically, CBO has been asked whether the reductions in projected Part A outlays and increases in projected HI revenues under the legislation can provide additional resources to pay future Medicare benefits while simultaneously providing resources to pay for new programs outside of Medicare. …

The key point is that the savings to the HI trust fund under the PPACA would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs. Trust fund accounting shows the magnitude of the savings within the trust fund, and those savings indeed improve the solvency of that fund; however, that accounting ignores the burden that would be faced by the rest of the government later in redeeming the bonds held by the trust fund. Unified budget accounting shows that the majority of the HI trust fund savings would be used to pay for other spending under the PPACA and would not enhance the ability of the government to redeem the bonds credited to the trust fund to pay for future Medicare benefits. To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.

Translation: You can’t spend the same $500 billion twice. Have I stressed that enough? You. Can’t. Spend. The. Same. $500. Billion. Twice. And yet, that’s exactly what the Senate Democratic healthcare proposal, the one that will pass tomorrow night, intends to do.

Where are we getting this double-appropriated $500 billion to begin with? From major cuts to Medicare, the system intended to take care of our seniors. As the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid have already confirmed, these cuts will jeopardize access to care for millions of America’s seniors.

Our nation’s seniors will suffer, we’ll suffer, and the fiscal health of our nation will suffer even more than it already has. What a deal. Thanks again, Democrats.