November 19, 2009

11/19: Score One For Harry

Political bloggers are discussing the health care reform bill that Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid presented yesterday. Although some liberal bloggers are annoyed by how much emphasis Dems have placed on cost, they're nevertheless pleased about the CBO's prediction that the bill would reduce the federal deficit by $130B over the next decade. Joan McCarter points to three of the Dems who have expressed skepticism about the bill -- AR Sen. Blanche Lincoln, LA Sen. Mary Landrieu, and NE Sen. Ben Nelson -- and declares: "[T]he numbers from the CBO make complaints about how much the bill could cost coming from any of these three pretty hollow." Conservative bloggers, meanwhile, are calling the CBO estimate "a fabrication."

In other news, liberal bloggers are pleased that Reid reportedly raised the possibility of using reconciliation to pass health care reform during a meeting with centrist Dems. Lefty bloggers believe that the threat of reconciliation gives progressive Dems more leverage and makes centrists like Lincoln, Landrieu, and Nelson more likely to compromise.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Liebau, Mirengoff, Morrissey) continue to criticize AG Eric Holder's decision to prosecute 9/11 suspect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in a federal court. Righty bloggers (Hinderaker, Hengler, Althouse, Reynolds, Allahpundit) are also buzzing about an exchange between Holder and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) at yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
• Liberal bloggers (Beutler, Benen, Dayen) are promoting a study conducted by the GWU School Of Public Health which found that Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-MI) abortion amendment will eliminate abortion coverage "over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange."
• RedState editor Erick Erickson thinks IN Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) is "an attractive choice to challenge Obama."

HEALTH CARE REFORM: It's A Numbers Game

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about the CBO's prediction that the Senate health care reform bill would cost $848B and would reduce the federal deficit by $130B over the next 10 years. They believe that the CBO's analysis undermines complaints from GOPers and centrist Dems about the bill's cost:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "[T]he numbers from the CBO make complaints about how much the bill could cost coming from [Sens. Lincoln, Landrieu, and Nelson] pretty hollow."
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "[T]he Senate healthcare reform bill comes in below the President's threshold of $900 billion over 10 years -- at $849 billion, to be precise -- and will reduce the deficit by $127 billion. [...] The Senate legislation will also reduce the deficit by a whopping $650 billion over the second decade of the bill, in total bringing deficit reduction to $777 billion over 20 years -- a number that will make it significantly more difficult for the Republicans to credibly claim that healthcare reform is in some way imprudent."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "CBO projects that from 2020-2029 the bill would achieve around $650 billion in deficit reduction. My prediction is that the very same centrist Democrats most likely to whine about the deficit will also be most hesitant to vote for the bill. Just saying."

Conservative bloggers don't believe that the CBO projection accurately reflects the bill's cost:

• Townhall's Kevin Glass: "How much of the reported CBO score will be honest and how much will be a Harry Reid-helmed attempt to game the CBO scoring system? Only time will tell."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "The Senate bill does not have a price tag. The Democrats are touting a cost of $849 billion, but that number is a fabrication. From Roll Call we learn that 'one Senate Democratic leadership staffer acknowledged that the cost estimate did not even represent an official preliminary score from the CBO but was a representation of "preliminary feedback" that Reid has gotten from the nonpartisan Congressional agency.' In other words, we do not know how much it will actually cost."
• NRO's Yuval Levin: "CBO's 10-year projection scores its cost at $848 billion, since CBO is required to use a 10-year window that starts at enactment and the bill is designed to start collecting taxes well before it starts spending money. If you look at the first 10 years of actual implementation, when both the spending and the taxes are in effect, the 10-year cost is $2.5 trillion. The Democrats are proudly pointing to the fact that even with its high cost the CBO says the bill will not increase the deficit in the first ten years, but what that actually means is that in the midst of an economic downturn it raises taxes (and also cuts Medicare for the elderly) enough to cover the gargantuan cost."

Meanwhile, liberal blogger Ezra Klein is annoyed by the focus on cost: "Health-care reform is increasingly hostage to numbers that are disconnected from the reality of the bill and its purpose. It's a real victory to push your bill below $850 billion if the point is to get it below $900 billion. But what if that's not the point? Most experts think the bill needs about $1.2 trillion to be truly affordable. Compromising beneath $900 billion might be necessary, but it's nothing to celebrate. It's a concession, not an accomplishment. It is, in fact, quite far from the questions that will determine the bill's success. In 10 years, no one will remember whether the bill cost more or less than $850 billion, and I doubt that the public option, if it remains in the legislation, will be particularly relevant either. They'll remember whether the bill worked -- whether it covered people at a price they could afford, and began the overdue and urgent work of cost control."

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: Reconcile This

Liberal bloggers are pleased that Reid reportedly raised the possibility of using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform during a meeting with centrist Dems:

• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "This strikes me as quite good news. [...] Good on Reid."
• Firedoglake's Jon Walker: "[T]his does stress the importance of having a simple majority option like reconciliation on the table. If the Democrats were completely unwilling to pass health care reform using some method that only required a simple majority, members like Ben Nelson, [CT Sen.] Joe Lieberman, and Blanche Lincoln would have complete power. They could force the caucus to change the bill to exactly fit their desires, or threaten to bring it down. With Reconciliation, there is at least the possibility that if they reject the compromise offered by progressive Senators, they will end up with an even more progressive bill passed using reconciliation -- since Harry Reid does not really need their votes, and so does not really need to let them have any input at all."
• Yglesias: "I think the Senate leadership has good reason to not want to try to push health care reform through under the budget reconciliation process. But I also think it's much easier to imagine a pretty good bill passing under standard procedure if it's clear to Senators that the alternative to breaking a filibuster is reconciliation rather than no bill. That levels the bargaining position. Progressive members are being asked to support a bill that contains provisions they don't necessarily like on the grounds that the overall package is better than the alternative. That needs to be a two-way street in which moderate members are, likewise, prepared to vote for a bill even if they don't get there way on every single point. The prospect of reconciliation is the best way to motivate that choice."

Meanwhile, Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher remains opposed to the opt-out public option provision, and she urges Reid to pass a stronger public option using reconciliation: "It is encouraging that Senator Reid respected the will of the American people and included a public option in the merged Senate bill. However, the addition of a state opt-out provision threatens to leave millions of Americans at the mercy of private insurance monopolies, with the federal government acting as enforcers for a product with no competition to keep prices down. [...] The Senate filibuster -- and the ability of any one Senator to hold the entire body hostage on behalf of lobbying interests -- must come to an end. If Harry Reid truly cares about fighting for the good of the country over the good of Wellpoint, he will immediately dispense with the opt-out and move to reconciliation and allow a majority in the Senate to deliver to Americans what they want and desperately need."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: How Palin Helps Romney

The Spectator's Alex Massie (h/t Michael Crowley):

"Until now [ex-MA Gov. Mitt] Romney has been tacking towards the nationalist base. But Mitt's not very good at phoney populism and it shows. Put [ex-AK Gov. Sarah] Palin in the race, however, and the equation changes: there's no point in Romney going after the type of voters most attracted to Palin (and, to a lesser extent, [ex-AR Gov.] Mike Huckabee) which, mercifully for him, might spare Romney the embarrassment of trying, once again, to be something he's not. That would give Romney the space, and the motivation, to focus on what he does best: present himself as the problem-solvig technocrat who knows how to get things done. [...]

This, then, presents Romney with the opportunity to run the campaign he should have run in 2004. He's never going to be an exciting candidate and he should probably cease trying to be such. Putting Palin in the race, however, allows Romney to be Romney without having to pander (too much!) or make a fool of himself by trying to persuade the Palinistas that, deep down, he's one of them."

LEST WE FORGET: It's About Generating Buzz

From Overheard in New York:

Young guy in deli to friend: So getting support from my parents is like dealing with a record label. You have to create a buzz, make it seem like you're doing something, or they don't want to be involved with you.

Posted by Ian Faerstein at November 19, 2009 12:32 PM