CBO: A Good Public Option Saves Even More Money Than We Thought
Via Ezra Klein, this heartening news. As Howard Dean said, there's simply no point without a good public option:
According to Congress Daily, the CBO says attaching the public plan to Medicare rates will save even more money than originally thought:
In a bid to wrangle concessions from the Blue Dog Coalition on healthcare reform, House leaders Thursday released CBO estimates for liberals' preferred version of the public option that show $85 billion more in savings than for the version the Blue Dogs prefer.
Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., a Blue Dog co-chair, said any possible new momentum toward a public option tethered to Medicare rates is, in part, "because of the cost issue" and the updated CBO score.
The original House bill required the public plan to pay providers 5 percent more than Medicare reimbursement rates. But as part of a package of concessions to Blue Dogs, the House Energy and Commerce Committee accepted an amendment that requires the HHS Secretary to negotiate rates with providers. That version of the plan will save only $25 billion.
In total, a public plan based on Medicare rates would save $110 billion over 10 years. That is $20 billion more than earlier estimates, a spokesman for House Speaker Pelosi said.
In other words, the conservatives want to spend $85 billion more than the liberals do. Moreover, the CBO is estimating savings to the government. That is to say, the $85 billion reflects reduced federal spending on subsidies because premiums in the public plan will be lower. Savings to individuals and businesses paying lower premiums will be much larger than $85 billion, and politically, much more important.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZoq3gPTgnE
I laughed all the way through it, and then I sighed...
I'd expect the CBO estimates for savings to be lower than what we'll get.
This is a good thing!
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
It's just that they always give the money away to corporate execs rather then average citizens.
Corporate execs make bigger political donations and they throw better parties . . .
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
...(remember when) AT&T threw a huge one (par tay) for Obama.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/25/at_t_th...
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
The problem is those savings will come at the expense of MdIC CEOs' bonus packages, and we can't have that. Free market and so forth...
This debate about how much this health care bill is going to cost is killing me. We went for 8 years spending money willy-nilly, now it's important for us to be financially intelligent? Hmmmm. Bush's tax cut, not paid for, Iraq war, not paid for. Give up the idea that you are trying to be fiscally responsible and get down to brass tacks. Who is getting money from the medical lobbyists to stop this legislation? They are probably the "fiscally responsible".
It is slaying me too
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
And now that it's been de-bunked, I wait with great anticipation for their next excuse to behave like Republicans.
Barack Obama: Change we can only imagine
I have an announcement for Willows54, Handypants, and Margaret.
the "brass tax" of it it all is basically...
There is no money left. It was all given to the Military Industrial Complex, Banksters, and International mega corporations. ...and the value of everyone's 401k plans was stolen by Wall st. ect...ect...
why dont we stop the wars overseas and toss out the Banksters (and the corporations who keep their money with them) ....out of our govt...!!! ...and then talk about healthcare?
I dont think we have control of govt yet and dont think we should jump into trusting our healthcare with these bastards yet.
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
Follow the $1.4 million dollars a day into the Beltway! It is going to both sides of the aisle! OpenSecrets.org has the list of donations per industry and per representative! Baucus and Conrad are big on the list...
Putting their heads together to think of a new excuse to oppose real reform. Maybe they'll pull a republican caucus idea out and just fling crap around to see what sticks.
Barack Obama: Change we can only imagine
??? You can rest assured flinging crap around to see what sticks is EXACTLY what they will do this next week. It's all they know.
In Canada we still have a viable healthcare business except they operate in providing enhancements to the basic care.
It also makes the competition for the business country wide, not the pie that the majors have cut the US up into.
Nearly all businesses in Canada have some sort of negotiated medical/dental plans that give added coverage for their employees. Where I work, we have a run of the mill, fairly basic program.
I am entitled to a semi-private room if hospitalized even if it means giving up the spoon launched mashed potato fights at supper and the nocturnal farting contests that occur in a ward setting.
I can get a pair of eyeglasses every two years, my kids every year.
Dental coverage up to 2 grand a year per family member.
Drugs payed up to 1.5 grand a year per family member.
Plus a whole raft of other benefits like prosthetic devices, hearing aids, physiotherapy etc.
For extra costs there are government programs to help. The system treats you when you are ill but also aims towards a wellness of being.
It saves costs in the long run.
Sure, we are all concerned of getting the big C or being injured in an accident but no one loses a minutes sleep worried about the cost of treatment.
It amazes me what an cold and inhumane system you have, makes me wonder why you have put up with this shit for so long.
Time to storm the barricades, eh?
Oh wait, wasn't that was what the last election was about or am I missing something?
This has never been about saving taxpayer or government money. It has never been about deficit neutrality. It has always been about corporate profits.
"Deficit neutral" is an oxymoron.
You get it. If they wanted to save money they would stop paying all the people like blackwater, and the other war contractors, the pentigon people! All that cost much much more then health care for the people/ All these congress and senate critters are invested heavily in these war profiteering companies! Why the hell do you think these lowlife scum got into government in the first place? Some kind of civic duty? Don't make me laugh! The modern day poll is a slimey, greedy, lying bastard backed by a lot of other slimey, lying, greedy bastards that put the money up and helped rig the supreme court and the government. Until we have had enough and put an end to it we are going to continue to live in a country that has a great moto with goals unacheivable by most.
republicanism is a mental illness!
and Hector Elizondo need to get together and make an ad about the public option, now that would be good.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/25/davi...
That means you cannot allow republican input.
Everything ever done by a republican is a mess. Why do you think government doesn't work? Because republicans are in government! They don't understand how it is supposed to be, and they always start with the greed principle of whats in it for me, how can I get something for this. The one inescapable fact in all this is that, republicanism is a mental illness! Until we quit giving crazy peoples ideas credence, (like we have done for the last eight years or more) we as a country are screwed. No other way around it we have to stop letting the inmates from the mental hospital drive the damn bus!
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S I N G L E
P A Y E R
S A V E S
M O R E!
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Starve the WAR Beast...
... Save the World.
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