Updated 8/17 with "History of Debt" infographic below

The Concord Coalition is proud to be partnering with a new effort called "Face the Facts USA." This nonpartisan initiative is a project of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs and will be providing a new fact every day until the election (for 100 total).

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today estimated that repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) would increase federal budget deficits between next year and 2022 by around $109 billion, only a small change from previous estimates. The CBO suggests that this can also be considered a rough estimate for how much the ACA reduces the deficit over the same time period.

The Medicare actuaries have just updated their projections for National Health Expenditures (NHE) and the overall picture they illustrate is a welcome one, but likely reflects temporary factors and cannot serve as an excuse for politicans to rest on their laurels.

In late April, the Medicare Trustees released an annual report on the financial status of the program. In their report, the trustees are required to analyze where Medicare costs are heading based on a strict reading of current law. However, there are numerous reasons to believe that these numbers do not give the full picture.

There has been a lot of confusion recently about whether the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the health care reform legislation passed in 2010, is now projected to cost substantially more than previously estimated.

The short answer is no -- the costs are still tracking pretty closely to the trajectory projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in 2010. The main reasons for the recent confusion involve a new estimate from the CBO and the fact that it has been two years since the legislation passed, putting us two years closer to the time it will be fully implemented.

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A shorter version of this column is featured on CNNMoney.com.

It is often said that the most expensive piece of medical equipment is the doctor’s pen. Unfortunately, after more than two years of intense debate about health care costs in Washington, politicians still seem stuck debating who should pay for the pen instead of focusing on how to make the pen less expensive.

Budget-watchers in Washington are quite interested in how Republican Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, will write a budget that will achieve the numerous and sometimes conflicting aims of his conference.

Urban Institute scholar Gene Steuerle has run the numbers and found that for Medicare, retirees are getting a really good deal.

In a fascinating set of calculations, Steuerle and colleague Stephanie Rennane, looked at both Social Security and Medicare and estimated the levels of benefits relative to taxes (and premiums for Medicare) paid for many different levels of income and years of retirement.

The legal term severable normally gets little notice outside the world of constitutional law -- yet now it has become a big buzzword amongst health care analysts and federal budget wonks. The reason has to do with the numerous legal challenges to the Accountable Care Act's individual mandate to purchase health insurance. 

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently updated its estimate of National Health Spending. This unusual mid-year update, delivered in an article in Health Affairs, reflects changes due to the passage of the health care reform law in March, along with a few smaller legislative changes since then.