Laughing Stocks

It will never happen, but if there were any justice in this country the House Republicans would be totally discredited and in fact held in contempt by the media for putting forth this steaming pile of bullshit purporting to be a health care reform bill.

I will let Ezra take it away:

Late last night, the Congressional Budget Office released its initial analysis of the health-care reform plan that Republican Minority Leader John Boehner offered as a substitute to the Democratic legislation. CBO begins with the baseline estimate that 17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won't have health-care insurance in 2010. In 2019, after 10 years of the Republican plan, CBO estimates that ...17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won't have health-care insurance. The Republican alternative will have helped 3 million people secure coverage, which is barely keeping up with population growth. Compare that to the Democratic bill, which covers 36 million more people and cuts the uninsured population to 4 percent.
But maybe, you say, the Republican bill does a really good job cutting costs. According to CBO, the GOP's alternative will shave $68 billion off the deficit in the next 10 years. The Democrats, CBO says, will slice $104 billion off the deficit.

The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan (...)The Democrats, constrained by reality, produced a far better plan than Boehner, who was constrained solely by his political imagination and legislative skill.

This is a major embarrassment for the Republicans. It's one thing to keep your cards close to your chest. Republicans are in the minority, after all, and their plan stands no chance of passage. It's another to lay them out on the table and show everyone that you have no hand, and aren't even totally sure how to play the game.

Democrats in the House should take the GOP health care reform plan proposal and bust them upside the head with its CBO score over and over and over again on the floor of the House. Its time we had more Democratic members of Congress calling bullshit on this fools and putting it up on YouTube for all the world to see.

The Baucus Bill Gets A Score

The results of the CBO scoring of the Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill are in. The numbers seem to line up with the framework President Obama asked for but as most of us know the devil is in the details. But the good thing is because the numbers look good on paper it is very likely that the bill itself will get voted out of committee. And that means we still have a fighting chance of getting health care done this year and with a public option when the two Senate bills merge and then when that amalgamation merges with the House bill. So this is still a move forward to everyone fighting for real health care reform. Now its time for the rubber to hit the road and for the progressives and liberal leaders in both houses of Congress to stand up and lead on the issue.

Consider The Game Changed

If liberals and progressives, both in Congress and as regular citizens, do not scream this information out loudly and repeatedly until somebody pays attention, then we don't DESERVE a public option in health care reform. Its all right there for the taking, but we have to actually get the word out.

From Ezra Klein:

According to Congress Daily, the CBO says attaching the public plan to Medicare rates will save even more money than originally thought:

In a bid to wrangle concessions from the Blue Dog Coalition on healthcare reform, House leaders Thursday released CBO estimates for liberals' preferred version of the public option that show $85 billion more in savings than for the version the Blue Dogs prefer.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., a Blue Dog co-chair, said any possible new momentum toward a public option tethered to Medicare rates is, in part, "because of the cost issue" and the updated CBO score.

The original House bill required the public plan to pay providers 5 percent more than Medicare reimbursement rates. But as part of a package of concessions to Blue Dogs, the House Energy and Commerce Committee accepted an amendment that requires the HHS Secretary to negotiate rates with providers. That version of the plan will save only $25 billion.

In total, a public plan based on Medicare rates would save $110 billion over 10 years. That is $20 billion more than earlier estimates, a spokesman for House Speaker Pelosi said.

There is absolutely no way for someone who calls themselves a fiscally conservative Democrat to argue against a public option at this point. And if they try it exposes them for the corporatist hypocrites that they really are.

Death Of Co Ops

Practically the only person I would ever read at Politico last year (pre Laura Rozen) was Ben Smith. Even if he was sensationalistic from time to time, for the most part he tried to play it down the middle. That is pretty much the only reason that I am willing to link to his post on GOPolitico on health care reform. Well that AND the fact that he makes a powerful point about the CBO scoring of Baucuscare, specifically the effect of his proposed co-ops.

(The proposed co-ops had very little effect on the estimates of total enrollment in the exchanges or federal costs because, as they are described in the specifications, they seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country or to noticeably affect federal subsidy payments.)

The CBO confirms what liberal co-op critics have charged: That they will neither cover many people nor put downward pressure on costs, the two supposed benefits of the public option.

Looks like Kent Conrad is going to have to go back to United Health Care and ask them to give him another load of bullshit to try to offer as alternative to the public option because when other Democrats get wind of this, the co ops are toast.

Talking Point DESTROYED!

Over the past few months the Republicans have repeatedly lied about the costs that the Waxman/Markey energy bill would pass along to the consumers. Well finally the CBO has come out with its analysis and it rips the GOP talking point to shreds!

Told, over and over again, that their talking point has no basis in reality, Republican officials nevertheless keep saying it. When the GOP isn't denying climate change science altogether, it's pushing the $3,128 claim.

OK, so we know the Republicans are lying, but what's the actual cost Americans can expect if a cap-and-trade system becomes law? The Congressional Budget Office, which has produced several reports of late that Republicans just love, reported on the expected costs of Waxman-Markey.

...CBO estimates that the net annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion -- or about $175 per household. That figure includes the cost of restructuring the production and use of energy and of payments made to foreign entities under the program, but it does not include the economic benefits and other benefits of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the associated slowing of climate change.

Now the MSM, which has been flogging an erroneous CBO report all week about healthcare reform, needs to harshly push back the next time a Republican tries to repeat that bullshit line since they obviously find the CBO so credible. It is not the media's job to pass along blatant lies to the public no matter what David Gregory says.

The Wingnuttiest Washington Times

Please always realize that the Washington Times is the Faux Nooz of print media. For instance this evening the Wingnut Times has a hair on fire article about the CBO's letter to Senator Judd Gregg supposedly telling him that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be harmful to the economy in later years.

President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.

Scary stuff right?


But what is the true focus of the letter to Senator Gregg? Well how about we stroll on over to the CBO director's blog to see what they have to say about it.

In a letter sent today to Senators Grassley and Gregg, CBO analyzed the macroeconomic effects of an initial Senate version of the stimulus legislation (the Inouye-Baucus amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 1, which is the House stimulus bill). CBO estimates that the Senate legislation would raise output by between 1.4 percent and 4.1 percent by the fourth quarter of 2009; by between 1.2 percent and 3.6 percent by the fourth quarter of 2010; and by between 0.4 percent and 1.2 percent by the fourth quarter of 2011. CBO estimates that the legislation would raise employment by 0.9 million to 2.5 million at the end of 2009; 1.3 million to 3.9 million at the end of 2010; and 0.6 million to 1.9 million at the end of 2011.

Thats what you call a bait and switch folks. Much like the article the Washington Times published earlier in the week where they clipped the words of Senator Max Bauchus in a press conference to make it seem like he was backing off trying to pass universal healthcare reforms this year when in truth every other source at the same press conference reported that Senator Bauchus' words projected the exact opposite. All newspapers are not created equal and the Wingnut times shouldn't be created at all. Talk about a waste of dead trees.

More Of The Same

What's that you say? Conservatives caught lying again? Say it ain't so.