If this scam had been pulled off by some private individual or company, authorities would be investigating and throwing around terms like “deceptive advertising” and “bait and switch.”

Alas, our new health care legislation is a product of the government, and the low-ball cost estimates used to get the ball rolling don’t even get a second look.

For example, when this “reform” was rammed through Congress using brute force in March, the Congressional Budget Office predicted the bill would cost $938 billion.

But by May, the CBO updated cost projections and predicted that the new health legislation would cost $115 billion more than estimated when enacted.

Quick calculation shows that’s more than a 13 percent increase in two month’s time. Don’t you think that just about anyone receiving Social Security benefits would like that kind of cost of living increase?

Now, would anybody want to bet that will be the last “adjustment” in the cost estimate?

Of course, we may not hear much about those rising costs in the immediate future because supporters are bound and determined to sell it at all costs. Remember when White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod claimed that health care reform would become more popular after it passed, boosting Democrats in the midterm elections? “We have to go out and sell it,” he told the National Journal.

Well, so far the public ain’t buying that line of thinking.

In fact, a recent Rasmussen poll showed that 55 percent of likely voters support repealing the reform effort.

Naturally, some of the displeasure stems from side effects of the legislation. There is real concern that it will drive up the cost of private insurance and cause some employers to quit insuring their employees.

And then there’s the fear that some on Medicare will be adversely affected when they no longer qualify for Medicare Advantage benefits.

And let’s not forget that some physicians have said they will consider leaving the field of medicine and that many planning to study medicine may have second thoughts. What good is national health care if you can’t even get in to see a doctor?

But even if rising costs are concealed, common sense will tell you that it’s going to happen. How many grand schemes from the federal government ever come in under projected cost?

We even have a model of sorts to use for comparison. When Medicare was instituted in 1965, it was estimated that the cost of Medicare Part A would be $9 billion by 1990. In actuality, it was seven times higher — $67 billion. 

Fast forward to 1987 when Medicaid’s special hospitals subsidy was projected to cost $100 million annually by 1992. It actually ended up costing $11 billion, more than 100 times as much.

So whether we’re being updated with cost estimates or not (the latter is the overwhelming favorite), our pie-in-the-sky health care plan is getting more expensive by the minute in all sorts of ways.

Why couldn’t our spend-hungry lawmakers have just offered us some beach property in New Mexico instead?