Politico: "CBO deals new blow to health plan"

[jocapo]

Has the CBO scored Single Payer - HR 676?

Link to article: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25415.html

[Teaser]

1. by saying the plan costs nothing, and in 10 years will result in savings?

ok politico..

[FrenchieCat]

2. Fuck Politico!

Whatever they are reporting, it ain't to give us any advantage in a long run!


But the headline is full of shit, even I can see that, considering the Text.....

"In CBO's judgment, the probability is high that no savings would be realized ... but there is also a chance that substantial savings might be realized. Looking beyond the 10-year budget window, CBO expects that this proposal would generate larger but still modest savings on the same probabilistic basis," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote in a letter to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Saturday.

"The point of the proposal, however, was never to generate savings over the next decade. ... Instead, the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs

over the long term," Orszag wrote. "In other words, in the terminology of our belt-and-suspenders approach to a fiscally responsible health reform, the IMAC is a game changer not a scoreable offset."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25415.html#ixzz0MJxD1pLG


It's about the plan being deficit neutral....and CBO can only go so far as to count unrealized savings.....so their estimate is conservative.

Guess they figure they can confuse enough dummies to cry "the sky is falling"!

[babylonsister]

3. Not so fast, politico- - -

http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2009/07/orszag-response-to-cbo-report-supports.html

Orszag response to CBO report: Supports what Obama has said all along

By GottaLaff


Peter Orszag responds to the CBO report I posted about earlier. Ahem, not so fast there, Politico:

This morning, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed proposals to shift more decision-making out of politics and toward a body like the Independent Medicare Advisory Council (IMAC) put forward by the Administration. CBO noted that this type of approach could lead to significant long-term savings in federal spending on health care and that the available evidence implies that a substantial share of spending on health care contributes little, if anything, to the overall health of the nation. This supports what President Obama has said all along: we can reduce waste and unnecessary spending without reducing quality of care and benefits.

The point of the proposal, however, was never to generate savings over the next decade. (Indeed, under the Administration’s approach, the IMAC system would not even begin to make recommendations until 2015.) Instead, the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs over the long term. In other words, in the terminology of our belt-and-suspenders approach to a fiscally responsible health reform, the IMAC is a game changer not a scoreable offset.

With regard to the long-term impact, CBO suggested that the proposal, with several specific tweaks that would strengthen its operations, could generate significant savings. <...>

The bottom line is that it is very rare for CBO to conclude that a specific legislative proposal would generate significant long-term savings so it is noteworthy that, with some modifications, CBO reached such a conclusion with regard to the IMAC concept.

A final note is worth underscoring. As a former CBO director, I can attest that CBO is sometimes accused of a bias toward exaggerating costs and underestimating savings. Unfortunately, parts of today’s analysis from CBO could feed that perception. <...>

{I}t is also the case that (for good reason) CBO has restricted itself to qualitative, not quantitative, analyses of long-term effects from legislative proposals. In providing a quantitative estimate of long-term effects without any analytical basis for doing so, CBO seems to have overstepped.

Read the whole thing here.

The headline of my earlier post was lifted from the Politico piece: "CBO deals new blow to health plan". Easy to understand, dramatic, and memorable. Now then, isn't that just like the Rushpublics?

Here we go again. We have the usual challenge: Refute, explain, repeat, and make it easy to understand, and hopefully, memorable.

[bkkyosemite]

5. To hell with anything that is not Single Payer. The legislators are being bribed by the insurance

pharma. Is not that a felony to take a bribe. Jail those in the Congress and the Senate who have taken bribes from insurance because those that they call gifts are bribes.

[babylonsister]

7. Tell that to the millions of Americans who have no insurance.

I imagine there will be something offered they can cheer about.

And are pols being bought off? I think they are, too, but good luck getting them jailed.

[bkkyosemite]

10. Without Single Payer those millions will not have adequate healthcare anyway.

[babylonsister]

12. And you know that how? That's right, you don't. nt

[jocapo]

4. Seriously, why wouldn't the CBO score HR 676?

HR 676 is a bill that is sitting in the House with about 90 co-sponsors that could be brought to the floor tomorrow. Bernie Sanders has one in the Senate that is very similar (I don't like it as much as the one in the House). If the CBO scored both or one of these bills and compared their findings to the gobbledygook that is currently being discussed, the reality-based community would be convinced leaving only the purists: the pure, unadulterated, self-centered, me-first, "conservative", citizens of the Bizarro-World that Republicans live in.

[Karmadillo]

8. An Inconvenient Truth?

nt

[nightrain]

6. Congress is dancing all around a better option. Ask your

Congresspeople to have the CBO do an analysis of HR 676 for comparison.

[xchrom]

9. ...

"The point of the proposal, however, was never to generate savings over the next decade. ... Instead, the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs over the long term," Orszag wrote. "In other words, in the terminology of our belt-and-suspenders approach to a fiscally responsible health reform, the IMAC is a game changer not a scoreable offset."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25415.html#ixzz0MKC66AOL


we could have better health care and cut costs sooner -- blue dogs are you listening? -- with single payer - we MAY get there with this 'reform' -- but we may not.

and as long as you leave big loop holes for insurance to take advantage of they will.
if they have enormous room to influence legislators between elections -- they will.

[spanone]

11. Douglas W. Elmendorf...director of congressional budget office

from wikipedia????

In 1993, Elmendorf moved to public life, working for the CBO office for the first time. He spent a year as an associate analyst before joining full-time in 1994 as a principal analyst where Elmendorf focused on health-care issues and the economic effects of budget deficits. Working under CBO Director Robert D. Reischauer, Elmendorf worked on a team that concluded President Bill Clinton's health reform package would cost much more than originally thought. This analysis helped cripple Clinton's attempt to reform health care.<2>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_W._Elmendorf




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