Fix Health Care Policy

Throughout the health care debate, President Barack Obama repeatedly promised the American people that his health care plan “will help bring our deficits under control in the long term.” The problem is that the White House could not get the Congressional Budget Office to cooperate. Throughout the summer the CBO issued report after report showing that the versions of Obamacare working their way through Congress all added to the deficit.

First, CBO found that the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) bill would increase the deficit by $1 trillion. Three weeks later, the CBO released a report on a revised bill showing HELP 2.0 only raised the deficit by $597 billion. The House then got a little clever and tried to game the CBO scoring system by phasing in the major spending of their bill over time, but even that maneuver left them with $245 billion added to the deficit in the first ten years (with crippling deficits to come as the entitlement spending ramped up in the out years).

Enter Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) who was determined to manipulate the CBO’s scoring system as best he could and deliver a deficit neutral version of Obamacare. After months of working directly with CBO staff, Baucus scored a victory for Obamacare yesterday when the CBO released a preliminary analysis purporting to show that the Baucus bill would reduce deficits by a total of $81 billion over the next decade. The New York Times awarded Baucus with the headline that the White House has been searching for since the debate first began: “Health Care Bill Gets Green Light in Cost Analysis.” But this headline and the accompanying article are fundamentally dishonest. As the Politico reported yesterday: “While the media and lawmakers often shorthand a CBO letter as a “score” or “cost estimate,” today’s CBO letter is neither. Because the bill is still in “conceptual,” or layman’s terms, CBO’s letter today was a “preliminary analysis.” For it to be an official cost estimate, the bill has to be translated into legislative language.” (more…)

Tags: Barack Obama, baucus, CBO, deficit, finance committee, HELP, Obama Health Care Plan, Vapor Bill

The Washington Post front page blares: “Prospects for Public Option Dim in Senate.” Don’t believe it. Yes, the Senate Finance Committee did vote down two amendments that each would have added a government-run insurance plan to the committee’s health care bill. But two key Democrats who voted against Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) public plan, Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Tom Carper (D-DE), voted for Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) version.

According to an independent analysis of Senate Democrat public statements on the public option, that raises the number of Democrats on record supporting a public option from 47 to 49. Moreover, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairmen of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, told the liberal “Bill Press Radio Show” yesterday that Democrats “comfortably” have the remaining votes to reach 51 and pass a public plan once the debate moves to the House floor.

But what about Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’ (D-MT) claim yesterday that, “No one has been able to show me how we can count up to 60 votes with a public option.” That may be true, but it is also irrelevant. The question is not whether Democrats can muster 60 votes to pass Obamacare; they only need 51 votes to do that. The only time the number 60 will be relevant is when the Senate votes on whether to end debate and vote on the final bill. This is a separate question. We can see Senators from red states like Ben Nelson (D-NE), Blanch Lincoln (D-AR), and Kent Conrad (D-ND) voting against an amendment creating a public option. But voting with Republicans against their party and against their President to support a Republican filibuster? That would take a lot of courage. It would guarantee that these Democrats would face fierce opposition from their leftist bases back home. Just ask the left’s new whip for the public option, Michael Moore. Speaking to women’s groups and unions in Washington, DC, yesterday, Moore warned: (more…)

Tags: Barack Obama, baucus, Government Health Care, Lincoln, Michael Moore, Nelson, Obama Health Care Plan, public option, reid, Rockefeller, Schumer, Senate Finance, single payer