Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) just unveiled his much discussed amendment (called a manager’s amendment), which many believe is the President’s last chance to secure significant health care reform before next year’s mid-term elections. Fittingly, since no one has seen the bill, the Senate clerk is now reading the bill, which could take upwards of eight hours. During that time, everyone will be trying to understand what is included in the bill. That includes understanding the key provisions that may have been inserted to win the support of Senator …
Senator Reid seems comfortable with clandestine negotiations in order to ensure passage of any type of health reform. This course, aside from being politically dubious and whimsical, is fiscally reckless, and with its passage, will continue to add to the debt that will straddle future generations with a significant amount of fiscal stress. As with the previous health reform bills, the assumptions and parameters the Congressional Budget Office must use will likely score this new bill as deficit neutral. Yet, the price tag for the overall bill will not changed, …
The latest Senate leadership health care compromise is a “Bumper Sticker.” There are no details yet, but the Bumper Sticker tells us enough about where this compromise is heading: a massive concentration of political control over the health care system. While the Senate leadership has decided to turn the outlines of their latest “breakthrough”- perhaps even the legislative text- to the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate, we know something about what they have in mind. The broad outlines tell taxpayers a great detail about where the congressional liberals …
