One of the primary justifications for the health care law’s passage was its fiscal benefits. But a significant new study by Mercatus Center scholar Chuck Blahous [1], public trustee for Medicare and Social Security, finds that the law falls well short of this standard, and in fact, unambiguously worsens the nation’s already unsustainable fiscal path.

Key findings 

• Even under an optimistic scenario, the health care law will add more than $1.15 trillion to federal spending over the next decade.
• The law will add more than $340 billion and as much as $530 billion to federal deficits over the same period, and increasing amounts thereafter.
• To ensure the health care law doesn’t worsen the nation’s fiscal outlook, two-thirds of the subsidies must be repealed or other fiscal offsets found before benefits begin in 2014.

For more on this paper’s findings, click here [2] and visit here [3] for a copy of the entire study.