The latest estimate of the Senate’s health care proposal will cost an estimated $829 billion. This projection comes from the latest analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), based on the “plain language” version of the bill, which includes a revised estimated $81 billion to the federal deficit over a 10-year period. At first glance, this seems to be a plus for the Democrats.
Not so fast!!!
First, estimates on a “plain language” version leave too many holes that can later be filled with the Democratic agenda, when the legislative language is constructed behind closed doors. That version does not have to be set up for the 72-hour public viewing, as the Democrats already blocked that amendment. In fact, it can be voted on immediately after construction, without being released to the public.
But even in the plain language version, there are plenty of points to argue.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
- Most of the bill’s funding comes from $404 billion in cuts to Medicare and other government insurance programs
- $201 billion comes from a 40% excise tax on particularly generous health-insurance plans levied on insurers.
- “Considering that 25 million individuals will remain uninsured under this proposal, it does not solve our health-care issues,” said New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican, citing the budget office’s calculation of the remaining uninsured.
- Democrats, as well as Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe from Maine, a key swing vote, were concerned that the bill forced people who couldn’t afford it to buy insurance.
The bottom line is that the new proposal raised the 10-year cost estimate from $774 billion to $829 billion (a $55 billion increase), does not increase the coverage of the uninsured over the previous proposal, and decreases the effect on the 10-year deficit from $49 billion to $81 billion (a $32 billion difference) largely by increasing Medicare cuts and increasing taxes.
Once again, we leave it up to Dick Morris to put the Senate vote into perspective. Dick advises that the two key players to watch as the health care vote moves forward, is Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-MA) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark) by saying “As Snowe and Lincoln go, so will the Congress.”
Sen. Snowe, although publicly has stated that she will not vote for a public option, has been on the hot seat with the Republicans since she backed a so-called public option “trigger”. As the CBO announced its latest analysis of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care proposal, Snowe insist on seeing the legislative version scored, not just the plain language. The legislative language will be more complex, constructed behind closed doors and leaves the door wide open for measures not clearly defined in the plain language version.
Sen. Lincoln is up for re-election, and her constituents do not want her to vote for the Bacaus bill. This is key. If she sides with the Republicans, as Dick surmised, it will “…open a wound in the Democratic Party. A domino effect will likely set in.” Democrats, especially those from conservative districts, know that health care reform in its current form has continued to lose public support in their respective districts.
In conclusion, there is a long road ahead. As the debate moves on, Democrats will continue to every measure to pass some sort of universal health plan controlled by the government. Republicans will continue to try push for a plan with minimal government control to include interstate competition and tort reform. As time runs out, the ugly head of desperation is being revealed. What may have been, at one point in time, a noble effort by the Democrats to provide more Americans with affordable health insurance, has now been overshadowed by a Democrat view that a defeat is not about American citizens, but a loss for the Democrat Party.
Remember, after all, it was President Obama who said this after he took his place as the 44th President of the United States:
“I won. So I think on that one, I trump you.”
Although he was responding to an issue concerning tax credits for people who do not pay income taxes, it was a very telling moment in that it showed the true character of Obama, as it reflects the attitude of the Democrat Party.
Tell me again who this issue is about?
Related Articles:
Snowe and Lincoln will determine everything
Snowe Amendment Would Add “Triggered” Public Option to Baucus Bill
Chet:
Is it too early to be drilling down into the fine details of this committee’s version of the health care reform bill. This finance committee bill (when it finally gets reported out) in legislative language, plain language, or any other language (heiroglyphics?) will be merged with the senate HELP committee version, and then if that bill passes the senate, reconciled with whatever makes it out of the house. Like you said “there is a long road ahead”, tiny or enormous “holes” in this particular committee’s bill are not important compared to the clear intent of the committee’s reporting. That clear intent is what will be used to form the merged bills that are finally reconciled.
Chet:
I know this is a bit off topic, and of course it is up to you and the other editors to decide what to cover, but I am interested in your take on this breaking development:
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/10/07/are_republicans_conceding_on_health_care.html
http://voices.kansascity.com/node/6136
Are we about to see a wave of “bipartisanship” as Republicans try to get onto the winning side of a reform they now know cannot be stopped.
PJ,
Any Health Care Plan brought forth by the liberals is an empty shell that will be conveniently filled-in as needed. Oh, did they eliminate the access to bank accounts, personal property, and parental advisory clauses from this new Plan?
Cheers, Donald
No, I do not believe the there is any truth that the Republicans are considering “caving”. I believe they are well aware of the consequences of doing such. The only poll I pay attention to is Rasmussen, which gives every indication that public support is not on the side of the way the health care reform is taking shape. Granted, support is up a little, but once the SFC’s bill is scrutinized, I am sure it will come back down again.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/october_2009/55_oppose_penalty_for_not_buying_health_insurance
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/october_2009/to_pay_for_health_care_plan_59_say_no_new_taxes_on_those_earning_under_250_000
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/health_care_reform
Now, before you say that Rasmussen is right leaning, take a look at the poll at the end of this comment. If it was right leaning, then why would their presidential poll show such a high approval rating at the beginning of his term? Don’t most “partisan” polls typical suppress anything that is not in their favor? Hasn’t Rasmussen been the most accurate while forecasting previous presidential elections too include 2008? Doesn’t both of your links site the main source as from the Kansas City Star? Isn’t the Kansas City star a very liberal newspaper?
Now, the next question is this…will people (republicans and democrats) believe that because they read it? Sure they will. But this may backfire on the democrats. If conservatives feel that the GOP might be “caving” as you call it, I believe the protest will rise again, which will have the same effect as the protest in August.
With that, I welcome articles like this.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
Keep in mind PJ, the majority of citizens want some sort of health care reform, republican, democrat and the like. The difference is the “type” of reform wanted. The fact the all polls show support of health care reform is nothing new.
PJ, I disagree. Now is the time to be drilling down fine details. Your assessment represents the democratic strategy. If the fine details are not exposed now, they may not have a chance once it has passed. You are right, there is a lot of reconciling that must take place, much more than you outlined. However, if things are not in the bill from the beginning, that should not be, then they have less chance of being implemented later. However, once it is in their, and the legislative language comes out behind closed doors, it may be too late to stop things that they public may or may not want.
Again, that’s exactly why the dems want to rush things thru. Think about the “crisis” of the stimulus, the “crisis” of cap-and-trade in the House. But the best example is their failed attempt to rush health care thru before the August break because it would have been a “crisis” not to. Can you imagine the chaos that would have taken place had they been successful?
Bottom line….it’s never too early to get to the truth, but it can be too late!
Donald,
I would like to add, as someone who worked for the Department of Veteran Affairs for 5 years, I had access to 100′s of thousands of bank account numbers, routing numbers, social security numbers, financial worth, etc. It has been less than a year since I left
The scary part is that I could access all this information, instantaly, without anyone noticing. for more details on this, read my article:
http://politicalintegritynow.com/2009/08/urgent-proof-that-obamas-health-care-plan-will-put-your-identity-at-grave-risk/
This is what to expect with a government run health care system, as that is what the VA system is.
PJ, you can’t dispute this as it is my own, personal experience working within the system…which is one of the reasons why I am so against it.
Correct me if I am wrong, but this projection does not include a public option, which the democrats will surely try to put in when reconciling the bills. so how will the affect on the deficit look then?
just a thought!
Don – Chet,
I think you have it right for he most part. I don’t mean to imply that the details of the Finance committee plan are irrelevant, just that details like the difference between the public language of a bill and the legislative language, or the difference between an 11 billion dollar cost estimate vs. a 12 billion dollar cost estimate are irrelevant. Don is right. The real details of the plan will be worked out in the merging and reconciling of the plans. We will have 4 fairly liberal plans merging with one moderately liberal one from the Finance committee. Chet, I agree with you that it is now or never for adding concepts to the bill, but not that any particular type of language is relevant at this point.
Chet:
Regarding that Kansas paper, I don’t know if they are Left or Right leaning, I just wanted to hear your side. Do you think Dole is misquoted then, or that pretty much no one is going to listen to him?
Regarding Rasmussen, thanks for the links and the info. While I do think they are right leaning as you said, I also think they are honest, and they do provide cross tabs, question wording, and all the other information that a top notch professional polling operation must provide. I do not question the validity or accuracy of their data in the least. I have followed them for many years.
I would not imply or even suggest in any way that rasmussen would or ever has handled their data improperly to favor a particular polling outcome. To answer your question about why a biased polling operation (which as I have already said – Rasmussen is not) would start President Obama with a very high Presidential approval rating, is that from there, the only place the President has to go is down. Like I said, I am not saying nor am I implying that Rasmussen has done this. Their polling of presidential approval is consistent with other pollsters in this regard. I am just answering your question.
Right lean from Rasmussen is evident from what questions they ask, and how they present their data. For instance, do you recall how presidential approval numbers were handled by Rasmussen during the Bush Presidency vs how it is handled now. For Bush – Strong Approve, Approve, Disapprove, Strong Disapprove. When you look at total Approval vs Disapproval – the numbers look much better for the president. When you look only at Strong Approval or Strong Disapproval, they look much worse. That is just one example, and the fact is I think all pollsters agree that Rasmussen is honest.
PJ, I think that the big, and often underestimated problem, with the merger of all the proposed versions of the bill is that not enough people know all of the details of each bill.
Take the “federal funding for abortions” issue:
Given that Obama and others have flat out stated that there will be no federal funding of abortions in the final bill. Well this is not set in stone, we’ve all just acknowledged that nothing, in the bill that doesn’t exist yet in its entirety, is set in stone. The HELP bill, I believe that’s the one but I’m just writing quickly and going off of recollection, contains the CAPPS amendment which most assuredly does allow federal funding for abortion. The specific details are discussed at length in this article. Most who claim that no federal funding will be spent for abortions, hide behind the Hyde Amendment. However, those same individuals are either unfamiliar with what the Hyde Amendment actually does, or hope that you and I are–and don’t know enough to do our own investigation.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/10/gibbs_misleads_on_abortion_fun_1.asp
Lovely