Healthcare Reform Thread II

[Drake Tungsten]

With the new CBO score, even with your bull**** accounting, you're still wrong.

It decreases the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the second decade. ...

Of course, the CBO only matters if it says bad things about Democrats. We've known that for several months now.

Over at Critical Condition, Hanns Kuttner notes that while the Democrats attribute their claim that health-care reform will cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion in its second ten years to the Congressional Budget Office, this estimate is nowhere to be found in the CBO report itself. It seems that the Democrats took the CBO’s estimate that deficit reduction could fall “in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP,” matched it up to some estimates of GDP in 2020–2029, and attributed their back-of-the-envelope math to the CBO itself.

I e-mailed a source within the CBO to ask if they had arrived at the $1.2 trillion figure themselves. The source e-mailed back one word: “No.”

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzU4ZWU2Njc1NzE1NjA4Y2QyYTUyNTUzMDcwOGJmZDQ=

[DaShi]

A conservative blog mentioning an email is a reliable source.

[Drake Tungsten]

You can go read the CBO report for yourself. Let me know if you find the $1.2 trillion figure.

[Hauldren Collider]

A conservative blog mentioning an email is a reliable source.

What would you say of a liberal blog mentioning an email? What difference does it make?

(It doesn't)

[DaShi]

I would be just as skeptical. The national review has an agenda and take such a thing at face value is naive.

[Ming]

I would be just as skeptical. The national review has an agenda and take such a thing at face value is naive.

Gee... they have an agenda... just like everything else. Everybody has an "agenda"

But true enough... you should always realize what the bias is when reviewing things. You should probably view issues from many different biased sources... see it from all angles, and then make up your own mind.

[DaShi]

Some organizations have more bias than others. To judge them all equally is retarded.

Then there are things that just raise red flags, like an anonymous email.

[Ming]

Some organizations have more bias than others. To judge them all equally is retarded.

True enough... and I never said that all bias was equal. And I don't judge everything equally. There is a big difference between news sources... some are totally biased (Fox comes to mind). The trick is to understand the bias and keep it in mind when reviewing it.

Then there are things that just raise red flags, like an anonymous email.

Yeah... now that's a BIG RED FLAG

[Theben]

David Brooks weighs in:

But I persist in the belief that government is more fundamentally messed up than ever in my lifetime. Barack Obama campaigned offering a new era of sane government. And I believe he would do it if he had the chance. But he has been so sucked into the system that now he stands by while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks about passing health care via “deem and pass” — a tricky legislative device in which things get passed without members having the honor or the guts to stand up and vote for it.

Deem and pass? Are you kidding me? Is this what the Revolutionary War was fought for? Is this what the boys on Normandy beach were trying to defend? Is this where we thought we would end up when Obama was speaking so beautifully in Iowa or promising to put away childish things?

Yes, I know Republicans have used the deem and pass technique. It was terrible then. But those were smallish items. This is the largest piece of legislation in a generation and Pelosi wants to pass it without a vote. It’s unbelievable that people even talk about this with a straight face. Do they really think the American people are going to stand for this? Do they think it will really fool anybody if a Democratic House member goes back to his district and says, “I didn’t vote for the bill. I just voted for the amendments.” Do they think all of America is insane?

[sic]

Something that’s even more depressing is people in our business. We pundits consult think tankers and experts and bloggers in hopes of getting an honest opinion. Many of the experts I consult have become party apparatchiks over the last few weeks. Pelosi says jump and they ask where they can check their intellectual integrity to lighten the load.

Yes, my own view may be distorted by the fact that I’m disappointed in the health care bill. But at least I violently opposed the nuclear option when the Republicans tried it a few years ago. I don’t think it is mere partisanship that makes me believe that representatives should have the guts to actually vote for the legislation they want to become law.

Either this whole city has gone insane or I have or both. But I’m out here on the ledge and I’m not coming in the window. In my view this is no longer about health care. It’s just Democrats wanting to pass a bill, any bill, and shredding anything they have to in order to get it done. It’s about taking every sin the Republicans committed when they were busy being corrupted by power and matching it with interest.

[Ramo]

You can go read the CBO report for yourself. Let me know if you find the $1.2 trillion figure.

Yes, I have the abilities to both read and do basic arithmetic.

Using that same analytic approach, the combined effect of enacting H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation bill would also be to reduce federal budget deficits over the ensuing decade relative to those projected under current law—with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP.

0.5% of GDP. ~$14 trillion GDP last year. Assume a constant 3% inflation, and let's take the GDP at 15 years as the average over the rest of the decade (it would actually be later than 15 if we weighed it properly). ~$1.1 trillion.

Have you really been reduced to comparing numbers from different decades

Nice truncation of my post. I spelled out my assumptions, you nitwit.

The reason why I was talking about the second decade is that was the original argument I made (and you quoted). You brought up the doc fix specifically in the context of second decade accounting.

based on questionable assumptions as gospel

I never said that it was gospel. But I'll trust a CBO estimate over your dataless assertions.

[Drake Tungsten]

You took a broad estimate from the CBO expressed as a percentage of GDP and turned it into a point estimate expressed in dollar terms via a variety of questionable assumptions. You then tried to pass this off as a "CBO estimate." Sadly, this is the kind of intellectual honesty we've all come to expect from you on this issue.

But I'll trust a CBO estimate over your dataless assertions.

You aren't even using the CBO's estimate...

[Ramo]

You are pathetic.

Avoiding substance at every possible opportunity.

[SlowwHand]

Like the backers of the Health Care Plan do.

[Drake Tungsten]

You are pathetic.

Yes, I'm the pathetic one...

[Ramo]

Jesus. This is basically an order of magnitude argument. It doesn't matter what the precise figure is.