On the heels of a House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing examining the true cost of the health care law, U.S. Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) released an analysis by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Office of the Actuary (OACT) that found the price tag of the new health law is on track to cost substantially more than initially estimated.

Since the enactment of Obamacare, employers have been examining their economic options regarding the offering of employer sponsored health care. Any action by employers will affect taxpayer spending on the subsidies for the insurance exchanges and the OACT study demonstrates the uncertainty involving the true cost of the health law. OACT analyzed a series of possible scenarios and their price tags. Under OACT’s original assumptions of how many employers would drop coverage, the cost of just the exchange subsidies would be $593.3 billion through 2021. If half of employers drop coverage for certain employees, the cost jumps to $823 billion through 2021. And according to a former CBO director’s analysis, the cost of the exchange subsidies alone could be as high as $1.4 trillion. When combined with the new Medicaid spending, OACT found that the total costs of the new health law could reach $1.56 trillion just through 2021.