Sen. Harry Reid and Co. are trying mightily to mask the costs of the massive health-care overhaul they are proposing. This chart shows exactly how deceptive they’re trying to be. Clearly, the period that the Democrats like to call the “first ten years” of the bill bears little to no resemblance to the costs that the American people would face over the long haul.

And as the trajectory of the chart strongly suggests, it would get even worse from there. In the next five years (forget ten) after those depicted on the chart, the bill’s costs would be $1.7 trillion (double what Senator Reid is claiming for “ten years”). Thus, the true first-15-year costs of the bill would be a cool $3.5 trillion — according to the CBO’s projections.