Lamar Alexander Not Impressed With CBO Report

This preliminary analysis of a health care bill is getting a lot of buzz right now. Senator Alexander notes that it's called preliminary for a reason. If it's so all fired good in any final form no one will object if we get to read it, or it goes through regular channels, as opposed to extraordinary means to secure passage, right? Oh, ... wait. Then there's that new Mommy tax? To put it bluntly, any one who says we can increase coverage and retain quality and reduce, or not increase cost is missing something somewhere along the way. Ain't gonna happen, no how, no way. It's all but an impossibility. And a government that rarely if ever gets anything right is not going to suddenly start doing so, now. And no one is going to convince me of anything else with some preliminary report. We should know better than that based upon experience, if nothing else.

October 7th, 2009- WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander made the following statement Wednesday regarding the CBO’s preliminary analysis of the Finance Committee’s proposal:

“This is an estimate of a concept, not a formal cost analysis of an actual bill. What we know at this point is that the bill cuts Medicare, raises taxes, and increases insurance premiums for tens of millions of Americans. It imposes onerous new costs on states and is likely to increase the federal debt. We need to see the actual bill text and know its exact text before we begin a lengthy debate about whether it’s the right direction for our country.”

Update: More from Legal Insurrection here. There is no Baucus Bill.

Comments

[Andrew_M_Garland]

Ironically, legislators are being realistic and human not to read the bill. The bill is not written to be read, it is written to be manipulated.

Our legislators should be blamed for going along with their party, for not demanding a readable bill and summary, and for the fiction that the "legislative language" is merely a technical representation of the "plain language" version.

There must be a detailed summary floating around in the background. Why can't we see it? Where is the reporter to ask that question?

The legislative tactic is "Give me anything that passes, we'll rearrange it later to do what we want".

The legislative language will be interpreted in detail as THE LAW. Then we will all be expected to do what it says, no matter how crazy, out of respect for the law.

++++++++++
This fictional memo has surfaced:

Memo - Health Plan Deficit Reduction
From: Chairman [redacted] of the [redacted] Committee
To: Healthcare Reform Drafting Group II
Re: Finessing the Health Plan Deficit
[snip]
The estimated deficit for our health reorganization plan is causing us trouble in the press. President Obama has promised not to raise taxes on the middle class, and not to increase the deficit. Unfortunately, we have to live with this until the plan passes Congress.

After passage, we will spend what it takes, just like the last times.

Please hold off on more complexity. I asked for enough boards, committees, commissions, and regulators to confuse things and distract our opponents. You went overboard, but that is not a big problem. Just don't add more.
++++++++++

Memo - Health Plan Deficit Reduction
http://easyopinionsoutlink.blogspot.com/2009/09/memo-health-plan-deficit-reduction.html

[Neo]

The underlying problem is that the Baucus bill is that the bill has 10 years of taxes and about 7 1/2 years of actual healthcare, leaving us with a program that will be underfunded by the 11th year.
Besides, the bill, or anything looking like it, has no chance in the House.

[Fred Beloit]

Don Surber's blog offers an alternative to the so-called bill:

Surber says this is not a contrivance but a for-real commercial. Scroll to top:
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/1120#comment-2454