Republicans, including Mitt Romney, the party’s nominee for president, like to conjure visions of President Obama’s health care reform package as if it were an ominous cloud portending the end of time. Spending will be uncontrolled and America will ride reform to ruin.

It turns out, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, that reform will actually cut the federal deficits, although unfortunately that’s because after the recent Supreme Court review of reform, states will have more leeway to leave people out from under the reform umbrella. Some three million who would have been included won’t be, and so the reform will cost less.

Even so, it will not cause deficits to rise, says the CBO, because of tax boosts and spending cuts that are part of the plan. They’ll offset costs.

Ah, but the Republicans’ much-touted plan to scuttle reform entirely will send the deficit up by more than $100 billion over 10 years, says the CBO. More people will be uninsured, with more of the costs on the government, and the costs of care itself will increase.

GOP leaders are undeterred. Sometimes the facts and truth don’t conform to campaign commercials. Therefore, don’t change the commercials. Just ignore the truth.