06.19.09
Some Senate D’s running scared over CBO report, House releases their version
As the title suggests some Senate Democrats are running scared from real health insurance reform because of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report released earlier this week. One of them is Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, who has received more campaign money from health and insurance industry interests than any other member of Congress.
Early in the week the (CBO) released a report on what a Senate committee had worked up so far. It DID NOT include a public option, therefore the numbers were high. Here’s what the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) had to say about the CBO report, Some Media Reports Mischaracterize CBO Estimate of Senate “HELP” Health Reform Bill. Now it’s not that the CBO did anything nefarious they’re just providing numbers on an incomplete plan:
The news media are widely reporting that, according to a partial and preliminary Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis, health reform legislation that the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) is developing would cut the number of uninsured by only 16 million people while costing $1 trillion over ten years. That conclusion, however, is incorrect. The CBO analysis covers only a part of the HELP plan (the parts for which the Committee gave CBO detailed specifications) and does not include major elements of the plan that would further substantially reduce the number of uninsured.
Consequently, the CBO analysis is highly incomplete; it does not show, nor does it purport to show, the effects that the full HELP plan would have on either health insurance coverage or the federal budget. As CBO itself noted, the provisions of the HELP plan that it did not cover “could also have substantial effects on our analysis.”
In the full article the CBPP has a run down of all that’s missing from the CBO report, one of which is the “public option”. Robert Reich does a great job of explaining that below:
The House released it’s plan today which appears much better and includes a robust public option [.pdf], and here’s the Draft Summary [.pdf] of the complete House plan.
One more thing from this post Stand with Dr. Dean:
Pardon my sounding like an angry blogger for a moment, but what the frak is going on here?
For years, candidates for, and members of, Congress told us that we needed to elect and re-elect them in order to lower health care costs and provide universal coverage. And so, for years, we dutifully worked our collective asses off, delivering wide majorities for Democrats-who said they would lower health care costs and provide universal coverage-in both branches of Congress.
Now, when it comes time for them to deliver on health care by providing a public option-the care minimum required to reduce costs and provide universal coverage-what we are getting instead are backroom deals, flip-flops, and cop-outs.
BOR has a post about how to contact your elected officials and get them on the record. It’s time for those of us who voted these Democrats into office to hold them accountable, and make them do what they said they would do if elected. We need to show them we’ve got their backs and they will be rewarded for doing what’s right.
Good reads on health insurance reform:
Nothing Intimidates Health Insurers Like The Public Health Insurance Plan.
Proving We Can Afford Public Plan Choice.