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More on the incomplete CBO numbers: It’s a Republican bait-and-switch |
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Via Sam Stein at the Huffington Post:
“CBO makes it clear — the Democrats’ plan will force millions of Americans to lose the care they have now,” Sen. Mike Enzi, the ranking Republican on the Senate HELP Committee, said in a statement. “Anyone who says that if you like the care you have, you can keep it under this bill doesn’t have their facts straight.”
House Minority Leader John Boehner sent out an email alert on the report, saying the Democrats “costly plan is exposed.” His colleague, Minority Whip Eric Cantor, meanwhile said the CBO score card was “troubling when we’re trying to save money that we would be calling for that kind of expenditure.”
The CBO’s findings, however, are for an incomplete piece of legislation, making the cost-per-coverage estimates much worse than they will ultimately be. Republicans on the committee knew this, according to Democrats. But they pushed for the bill to be studied by the CBO now. And when poor results came back, they ran with them.
“The reality is there are still some outstanding issues, including employer responsibility and a public insurance option,” said a Democratic aide to a committee member. “Those are two outstanding issues. So what we did in a good faith effort to find bipartisan consensus, we did not include those elements because we are trying to find common ground. But Republicans wanted there to be a score even though, the reality is, if there is an incomplete bill you will have an incomplete statement.”
Another Democratic aide to the HELP Committee member concurred, adding that Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office, in an effort to “find bipartisan consensus with Republicans colleagues” filed the bill and allowed it to be scored by the CBO — not expecting it to be used as partisan fodder.
This was a setup, plain and simple.
Now, Republicans have a history of dismissing CBO reports when it suits them, so this is hypocrisy, too. John McCain’s economic advisor, Dougals Holtz-Eakin, said 10 year CBO numbers are “not a good use of projection” and you’d be on “dangerous ground” to use them as such (see Investor’s Business Daily, 5/29/03). Bush dismissed 10 year CBO estimates as “notoriously innacurate.” And Congressional Republicans didn’t even show up to the hearing on the CBO’s projected cost of the Iraq war.
However, there’s still a big question to be asked here. If the HELP committee feels betrayed here (and honestly, couldn’t they see this coming?), will they release a bill into committee with all the things they’ve failed so far to find “bipartisan” consensus on, like shared responsibility and a strong public health insurance option? I hope so. As Howard Dean says, we should do what’s right for the American people, not what’s right politically for the Senate.
(also posted at the NOW! blog)
