After just glancing through the just-released CBO report [pdf] on the Baucus bill, I can only say that more than ever I believe adopting Wyden’s Free Choice Proposal [pdf] is a necessary move – more necessary in containing costs and providing adequate insurance than the public option, I’d say. It really empowers the exchanges and creates much less neutered insurance for private buyers.
Also, while this bill is nominally something conservatives should welcome with open arms – it doesn’t kill the status quo and it actually saves the government $81 billion dollars between now and 2019 – I know they won’t. For some conservatives, with a real concern for these things, the bill won’t go far enough to dismantle the status quo and bring about market reforms. For the current GOP leadership and the talking heads, anything that Democrats do these days, no matter how crippled, is tantamount to socialism. It almost makes you wonder why they didn’t just make a piece of real progressive legislation and then jam it through, and take hits where they need to. You know, barter. Go big and then work your way down. If you start with such a feckless, unambitious bill, what are you likely to end up with once all is said and done?
Beyond that, it won’t cover all the uninsured. The CBO estimates 29 million people currently uninsured will gain coverage under the new law. That’s not bad, but it’s not great either.
See also: Ezra Klein, Igor Volsky
Update.
The good news, substantively and politically, is that CBO expects the measure would reduce budget deficits by $81 billion over the next decade and by even larger sums in the following decade. (It won’t say exactly how much it expects the bill to reduce deficits over the following decades, given that it’s hard to be specific with such long-range estimates.)
The coverage news is not quite so good–although, to be honest, it’s better than I expected, given the rumors running around today. CBO estimates that, as of 2019, 94 percent of legal non-elderly residents and 91 percent of all non-elderly residents would have insurance.
That’s significantly lower than the projections from the House bill, which would result in corresponding figures of 97 percent and 94 percent. In raw numbers, it’s the difference between 25 million people (Senate Finance bill) and 17 million (House bills) still uninsured ten years from now.
“It almost makes you wonder why they didn’t just make a piece of real progressive legislation and then jam it through, and take hits where they need to. You know, barter. Go big and then work your way down. If you start with such a feckless, unambitious bill, what are you likely to end up with once all is said and done?’
I’ve been asking myself these questions my entire voting life as a liberal (with very small libertarian leanings). There is a reason why the democratic party has such a wimpy reputation. They are too willing to concede when they don’t have to, way before the inevitable negotiations and whittling down starts. It’s stunningReport
Well the Democratic party is not all that progressive. They are a broad coalition with not that much of the old style lefties still around (conservo inability to understand the definition of words or the political spectrum aside). Also they had to postion a bill to prevent to much opposition from the various powerful forces (AMA, AARP, drug companies, hospitals, etc)Report
“Also they had to position a bill to prevent to much opposition from the various powerful forces”
Well that’s the thing right? That’s what I mean. Inevitably, the Democrats weren’t going to get everything they wanted, no matter what they proposed. It’s the unwillingness to take the hits that bothers me so much, it’s strange because the “hits” get taken regardless, it’s as if they operate on some delusional assumption that the GOP, deep down inside, really wants to agree with the Dems to pass “blue” proposals. No guts.
I’m a realistic liberal, there really is nowhere else for me to go, Naderite candidates are not a pragmatic option in my eyes. I’m too leftie to be “independent” cause I vote for Democrats everytime anyway, that’s not very independent.
The Democratic party needs to learn how to be a “big tent” party again, which includes ultra-blue progressives….I can only hopeReport
I don’t get why insuring 29 million previously uninsured is “not bad” but “not great either.” According to Obama, we only have just over 30 million uninsured. And Megan McArdle explains pretty well why the number is actually much lower than that.Report
Well, I don’t know that the Baucosity is going to be much like the final bill that Obama will get to sign. I suspect that this is the high tide for Baucus (which is pretty bad news for him), and that you’ll see a more radical bill in fairly short order. I would agree that a number of Democratic Senators are wishywashy centrists at best, but they can read the polls as well as anyone. What the polls say is that the public option is popular, and that Senators who deny it to their Democratic constituents may not have much of a future. I would be tempted to place a small bet that the final version will include a good public option, that it will get an up and down vote in the Senate, and that about five Democrats will vote against, having previously broken the filibuster.Report