Examining major health reform legislation enacted over the past 30 years, the Commonwealth Fund finds that the CBO substantially underestimates the savings from reform measures.  The authors note that, because the CBO requires substantial historical precedent for its claims, the agency has difficulty addressing the effects of measures like comprehensive health care reform that enact multiple, largely unprecedented, changes simultaneously.  Commonwealth’s analysis included prospective payment reforms for hospitals in the 1980s, the Balanced Budget Act from the 1990s, and the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA). 

Full Report: Does the Congressional Budget Office Underestimate Savings from Reform? A Review of the Historical Record (PDF | 539 KB)

Commonwealth Fund. (2010). Does the Congressional Budget Office underestimate savings from reform? a review of the historical record. Gabel, John R.