This excerpt originally appeared in The Washington Post on April 13, 2012.

The study, by Charles Blahous of the free-market-oriented Mercatus Center at George Mason University, put meat and numbers on the bones of a Republican argument, made since 2009, that the act will add to the deficit. Blahous said that it will add at least $340 billion, and perhaps as much as $527 billion, to the deficit over 10 years.