Rep. Paul Ryan 1, ObamaCare 0

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) held an important hearing on ObamaCare, showing just how important is the process for educating the public, and thereby setting defenders of ObamaCare back on their heels.

As he did last night, Ryan explained the contrast between how the two parties approach health care:

“Do we empower consumers, or do we price-control from the government? What works best? … Medicare is the biggest driver of our debt. We’re all kidding ourselves if we think the program can just go on as is, and the sooner we address this the better off everybody is — the better we can guarantee my mom, who’s been on it for a number of years, and everybody else’s mom and dad, can have the program they organized their lives around, and that future retirees have a program they actually can count on. That’s the purpose of this particular bill that I introduced, and that’s hopefully the purpose of what we’re all trying to achieve.”

But it was Richard Foster, the chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who delivered a devastating blow to the ObamaCare supporters’ claims of fiscal discipline.

First, came Foster’s assault on the double-counting utilized in theCBO scoring:

REP. JOHN CAMPBELL(R- Calif.): “Is it legitimate to say… that you can add a dozen years to the solvency of Medicare or that you can reduce the deficit, but it is not correct to say both simultaneously?”

FOSTER: “Both will happen as a result of the same one set of savings, under Medicare. But it takes two sets of money to make it happen. It happens directly for the budget deficit, from the Medicare savings, and then when we need the money to extend the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, we have a promissory note – it’s an IOU, not a worthless IOU, but it is an IOU – and Treasury has to pay that money back. But they have to get it from somewhere. That’s the missing link.”

Then he endorsed the idea behind Roadmap for America as a superior cost-savings mechanism. He also threw cold water on those touting ObamaCare as a way to save money. The A.P. reported:

Two of the central promises of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law are unlikely to be fulfilled, Medicare’s independent economic expert told Congress on Wednesday.

The landmark legislation probably won’t hold costs down, and it won’t let everybody keep their current health insurance if they like it, Chief Actuary Richard Foster told the House Budget Committee. His office is responsible for independent long-range cost estimates. . . .

Foster was asked by Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., for a simple true or false response on two of the main assertions made by supporters of the law: that it will bring down unsustainable medical costs and will let people keep their current health insurance if they like it.

On the costs issue, “I would say false, more so than true,” Foster responded.

And as if all that was not enough, there was this exchange:

McCLINTOCK: “The other promise… was the promise that if you like your plan, you can keep it. True or false?”

FOSTER: “Not true in all cases.”

James Capretta, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, also testified and observed the full hearing. In response to my inquiry as to the main take-away, he e-mailed, “The most important thing said [by Foster] today: in so many words, moving toward defined contribution health care has more potential than price controls to bring about real efficiency gains and higher productivity in the health sector, and slow the pace of rising costs. That’s a very big deal.” And a very big blow to the credibility of ObamaCare cheerleaders