Apparently hoping the American people will not notice, Democrats in the House of Representatives have shifted $230 billion of the cost of their proposed medical reforms into a separate bill. By doing so, they are trying to claim that the main reform bill would cost "only" $894 billion over 10 years. That's absurd!

The New York Times reports, "Democrats held down the cost of their bill, in part, by splitting off provisions to increase Medicare payments to doctors. Those provisions, which would cost more than $200 billion over 10 years, were put into a separate bill ... ."

Wait a minute! Shuffling $230 billion of the reform tab into a separate bill is not "holding down the cost"! It's just splitting it up to make the main bill seem cheaper -- not that $894 billion is "cheap" by any means.

Suppose a car salesman told you he would reduce the cost of a $20,000 new car to $15,000 -- but still required you to pay the additional $5,000 on a separate payment plan. You certainly would not think you were getting some kind of bargain.

With their budget trick, the Democrats are cynically trying to pretend the cost of their proposed ObamaCare socialized medicine reforms are below the shocking $1 trillion mark. But with the extra $230 billion in the offing, the real figure is vastly higher than $1 trillion.

And even those estimates are far lower than what ObamaCare would actually end up costing us all in the long run. Federal entitlements virtually always carry a much heftier long-term price tag than what the original "guesstimates" claim.

The Democrats are using tricks to try to make budget-busting ObamaCare the law of the land. Only determined, widespread, clear public opposition is likely to stop them.