Put your money where your mouth is

Here's a challenge for anyone who believes the President when he says that "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period."

I'm not usually a betting man. I'm on record pointing out what a ripoff the lottery is, not like that's news to anyone. Casinos have no appeal to me. But I do like a sure win. So I propose a friendly wager over Obama's promise that Obamacare will not add one dime to the deficit. If you have the courage to back up your blind faith, match my $500. We'll find someone mutually acceptable to hold the money, and the winner can designate the $1,000 plus interest to the charity of his choice. When I win, I'll select Samaritan's Purse to receive the money.

I've discussed what it means to not add to the deficit, so if you want to understand the thinking behind the metric, read my last few entries, particularly this one.

Here are the terms:

If Obama vetoes the health care reform bill citing the fact that it is not deficit-neutral as the reason, and does not sign any health care reform bill, I will concede the bet.

If Congress does not pass a health care reform bill in 2009 or 2010, the wager is off and each person gets their money back.

If Congress passes a health care reform bill and Obama signs it, we will compute the per-capita health care contribution to the deficit in 2009 dollars for 2009 and for each of the first 5 years that Obamacare is fully enacted. Most of the proposed bills require about two years to take affect, so the years we would consider would be 2012-2016.

Given these inputs:

MedicalCosts(year) = Total actual Federal expenditures for the specified year, for all health-care programs, including Medicare, CHIPS, VA medical program, Medicaid, HHS, Obamacare, etc.

MedicalTaxes(year) = Total actual Federal tax revenue for the specified year levied specifically for medical programs, including Medicare payroll taxes, and all taxes included in the Obamacare bill

CPI(year) = Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation, from July 1 of the specified year

Population(year) = Total population of the United States for the given year, according to the Census Bureau

For each year we would compute

RealPerCapitaDeficit(year) = CPI(2009)*(MedicalCosts(year)-MedicalTaxes(year))/
(CPI(year)*Population(year))

If the real per capita deficit is higher in any of those five years than it was in 2009, I win. If not, you win.

The $1,000 with interest will be given in the winner's name to the charity of his choice.

I almost feel bad about taking advantage of fools, but they seem to want it so badly.