CBO: Health-care reform bill cuts deficit by $1.3 trillion over 20 years, covers 95%
According to the CBO, the current health care bill covers 95% of all Americans and is actually deficit reducing. It ends recission, denial for pre-existing conditions, and aims to create a real market for individual insurance plans. It’s not comprehensive single-payer health care for all Americans, but it seems to be about as just as the private market for health care can be.
Here’s what I think: Obama has been too slow on this issue. Obama is on the wrong side of same-sex marriage (he is against it). Obama has been too slow on DADT. Obama has not said or done enough about corruption in Illinois. All that said, he’s the best thing we have going for us. He’s a serious person who thinks seriously about governance. That’s why he won my vote. Obama, Reid and even Pelosi deserve commendation for getting us this far.
It’s becoming harder and harder to see Mitch McConnell as representing an opposition that is serious about anything. I’m starting to think that the opposition to this bill is bordering on unethical.
But I know better than that. I know that there are some very principled people that believe that we should live in a world where Democrats are not politically successful.
I support the current Health Care proposal. The status quo has too many problems and encourages bad behavior by insurance companies. We ought to do more in the future. But we should start here.
PASS THE DAMN BILL.
The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130 billion during that period. In the second 10 years — so, 2020 to 2029 — it will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. The legislation will cover 32 million Americans, or 95 percent of the legal population.
To put this in context, that’s more deficit reduction than either the House or Senate bill, and more coverage than the Senate bill.
