So, file this under “I have a bridge to sell you”, but if you believe the new CBO estimates handed out today, Obamacare would actually reduce the deficit by $81 billion over 10 years. I’m guessing someone in the administration finally got to these CBO guys and told them that they needed to toe the line or they might get a visit from Joey “the bat” Gambino.
First, let’s admit that for those of us who are not wild about this health-care plan, this isn’t good news for us. Opponents have been relying on the previous CBO estimates that pointed out that Obamacare would not be budget neutral. So, this takes an arrow out of our quiver . . . or does it?
Let’s realize that these numbers are highly debatable. The CBO relies on “conservative” estimates that historically have just not been true. The actual report released today states, “Those estimates are all subject to substantial uncertainty.” In other words, they are basically pulling these numbers out of their behind. How substantially uncertain are these estimates? Just as one example cited by Hot Air, in 1990 Medicare’s initial projection showed a $12 billion dollar expenditure for the year. The actual expenditure ended up being $170 billion, a mere 800 percent correction.
Second of all, this bill is not even close to anything resembling a final version. It doesn’t even include a public option (which is still DOA). You can rest assured that amendments will be introduced, parliamentary tactics will be used, and the real cost of this bill will not be reflected in any kind of realistic estimate.
However, this CBO report may give Democrats enough cover to try some shenanigans in order to get their bill passed. Harry Reid apparently has some trick up his sleeve where he plans on passing the bill without the public option (which is now more likely thanks to this report); thus avoiding a filibuster debate. Then he would add the public-option as an amendment afterwards, which would then only require 51 votes, not the 60 for cloture. From the Washington Examiner:
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is weighing a plan to bring the final health care bill to the floor without a public option — making it much easier to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster — and then adding the provision later as an amendment.
The public option amendment would be there waiting, but the 60-vote test would technically be on a bill without the government plan. Then moderate Democrats could drop out for the vote on the public option, which requires just 51 votes for passage.“It’s brilliant,” said a top Senate Republican aide. “It gets you your votes on cloture for a package that does not include a public option.”
Reid has not revealed whether he will use this tactic, but he’s considering it.
“We haven’t made any decisions yet,” his spokesman, Jim Manley, said. “We have different options — that is one.”Senate aides suggest that after passage in the upper chamber, the Senate bill — public option included — could then be sent to the House, allowing the lower chamber to simply pass Reid’s legislation instead of taking up its own bill. That route would avoid a protracted and contentious battle to meld two different bills and might allow President Obama and Democrats to achieve their goal of passing health care reform by year’s end.
Open-government proponents slammed the tactic, saying it would be a bait-and-switch gambit for the Senate to put forward a bill without a public insurance option, only to slip it in later.
Most ethical Congress evah!!! The point is, the Democrats are going to try any trick they can in order to push this crap on us, even though it’s clear that a majority of Americans don’t want it. The above trick is so transparent and obvious that even Obama voters can see right through it (I hope). But, it might not hurt to put a call into your senators and reps just to make sure, keep on ‘em.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Too all who seriously believe this thread’s headline: I have some ocean-front property at a Martian pole I’d like to sell you.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Only if they get away with dropping 400 billion from medicade.
That will never happen
October 7th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
it’s fools gold
October 7th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Rove comes out swinging:
“The CBO report claims the bill won’t add to the budget deficit until 2015—but the bill only manages that feat by delaying benefits and imposing taxes and Medicare and Medicaid cuts up front.
The CBO report does shed some light on the cost for each person the Baucus plan would add to the ranks of the insured. CBO estimates the plan would insure about 29 million people. If that is right and if the total price tag is also accurate, the average cost per year per person for the seven-and-a-half years benefits will be in force during the program’s first decade would be $3,811. That compares favorably to private insurance. On average, a single person now pays $4,824 a year for health coverage and a family of four pays $3,344 per family member per year, according to the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy.
But the CBO numbers are almost certainly overly optimistic—there has only been one large-scale federal health program that has come in at or under its projected cost, the Medicare prescription drug benefit enacted under the previous administration, which is costing 40% less than estimated.”
October 7th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I bet you by the first year when everyone in America with a brain switches to this crap shack of a bill so they can get free care. Well than will see how the CBO looks at it. I mean if there’s a free healthcare plan on the table I’m signing myself up just to help bankrupt this system so they’ll cancel it.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Also do people realized there going to be taxed to death on this plan. I mean you can easily make it budget neutral, but you have to either but spending or raise taxes. And when there’s a Dem in the white house that’s always the case. And really Pelosi wants a VAT tax now what’s bloody next.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
This bill will kill America.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
but….but, charles, The Jerk off-in-Chief says it won’t.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Thats the intention.
I dont see any other reason for doing this.
All logic says this is the dumbest fcking endeavor the government has ever embarked on.
Only 900 billion ?
Just how damn stupid does anyone think anyone is. I’ll bet that no one will bet that those numbers even come close a fw years from now. Medicare and medicaid went 10 times past what they were supposed to cost originally.
1000.00 electric chairs are being sold to medicaid for 7000.00 today.
“but were going to clean up all the fraud so we can pay for this”
Good, clean up the fraud “FIRST” and maybe someone will believe you.
Its like standing on the edge of a volcano and having a bunch of maroons tell you to jump, its a jacuzzi, it wont hurt.
Its like giving your 4 year old the keys to the car.
Its like screwing Amy Winehouse in the name of health
October 8th, 2009 at 1:17 am
Geez, micky, you’re still a potty mouth. Did you know that being a potty mouth does absolutely nothing to increase the persuasive effect of your claims? Maybe even less than nothing– it makes people think you’re just an angry potty mouth with nothing to say but potty mouth stuff. Grow up a little, potty mouth. And btw, America currently spends more on health care than ANY nation with national health care. It’s not that difficult to understand– the uninsured end up going to the ER instead of getting regular preventive care, and the tax payers foot the bill. If all you silly potty mouths really care about is your own bottom line, a public option (yes, that’s “option” not “requirement”) is kind of a no brainer. Get over your potty mouth and engage the issue. Finally, if the prescription drug benefit came in at 40% less than estimated, why is it so hard to believe that this one might also???
October 8th, 2009 at 5:43 am
This analysis was based on Medicare cuts that history tells us simply will not happen. It just won’t happen. But, as Peter Suderman from Reason pointed out, “there’s also good reason to believe that, regardless of precedent, what the CBO says goes. So when the CBO says a bill will bring down the deficit, everyone in Congress ends up acting as if that’s true.”
In other words, all of the empty suits are going to drink the CBO kool aid.
@Allen: I actually agree with you that invective and insults are detrimental to the conversation. But you forfeited any point you had by using the term “potty mouth”, not once but 5 times. What a stupid, patronizing pre-school term.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Allen.
Why dont you try concentrating on the issues and conversations attached instead of being such a “pedantic moonbat” as you called me in a previous post ?
“line, a public option (yes, that’s “option” not “requirement”) is kind of a no brainer.”
Its a no brainer for you in the sense that you’ve not the brains to see the collateral damage such bills provide down the road.
These “options” were tried in Hawaii and Oregon (or Washington) and quickly steered competition away from the private sector to the point where the only “option” left was the government option. In addition the programs both went broke due to the public seeing them as “free”. Consequently the programs had to be scrapped because the revenues just werent there any longer.
Its really alot more complicated than the generic simple minded crap you spew thats been discounted by just about any simpleton economist.
You say I have nothing but “potty mouth stuff” to say but that actually makes you a liar again because the fact is that in this thread and the other one you do absolutly nothing to refute any of my claims or points.
So, while you’re so concerned with my choice of words and claim they cancel out any persuasivness its actully you whos messages are vacant of anything substantial in that you hang it all up on pedantic focuses such as one word like “Option”
I suggest you look into what the ramifications are of such an “option” before you go rambling off anymore of your lame mainstream generic talking points.
It is not just an option in the sense that you can or cannot choice to participate. The whole option is based a formula of wealth redistribution that none of us will be allowed an option in. That option we are being robbed of is the choice as to whether or not we have any say so over where our money goes.
The fact is that the majority of the country does not want the option forced down their throat that we must pay taxes so that 37 million Americans, 20 million of which dont deserve or want it,can have health insurance.
The fact is that the majority of the country does want insurance reform. But not at the hands of a huge government operated entity dispensing our healthcare.
Soooooooo, would you like to talk some more about the “REAL” options we are being faced with or getting screwed out of ?
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The CBO estimate is garbage in that it bases its forcast on the assumption that it will be able to achieve balance by trimming medicaid of 400 billion dollars.
This will never happen. Its a dream, a fantasy.
There will be riots in the streets if they even try such a thing and will only drive home the point that the majority of those seniors who reject the public option have been making.
It also still leaves 25 million uninsured for the next 10 to 19 years.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:59 am
I heard Bob Dole is pushing Obamacare. Why doesn’t he just shut up.
October 9th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Will bookmark - nice job and interesting read.