Health Care Reform

The CBO analysis of the compromise health care reform legislation won't be officially released until 11am, but it's being leaked to various outlets.  Politico's topline summary:

The Congressional Budget Office has determined that the health reform plan will cost $940 billion over 10 years, but will trim the federal deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years and $1.2 trillion in the second ten years, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said. Those deficit numbers should help ease the worries of deficit hawks on the fence about supporting the bill.

According to Marc Ambinder, "the CBO says that the bill would reduce Medicare expenditures by about 1.4% per year, extending the solvency of the program by nine years. 32 million Americans will be covered -- about 95% of all those eligible."

Released late Wednesday:

Cynthia Davis (R-O'Fallon) explained this morning why her proposed constitutional amendment is "our only and last hope for protecting Missourians to keep their freedoms and their rights."  Also, Davis committed unspecified acts of violence against a girl in junior high who tried to trip her. I'm probably not explaining it right.  Just listen:

I'm convinced. How 'bout you?

In a new statement posted on his official website, Rep. Todd Akin warns that if the Senate-passed health care legislation becomes law, "it will create a system where unelected 'health care' bureaucrats can decide to use your taxes to pay for abortions."

This isn't true.  The Senate legislation -- with abortion language written by anti-choice Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) -- would require people who want coverage for abortions to write two checks to their insurance provider, and the plans would keep the money in a separate account from taxpayer funds.  The Associated Press analyzed the legislation last week, as did PolitiFact.com.

The Post-Dispatch challenges Rep. Todd Akin today for his prayers for God to stop "this fatal step pushing our nation into socialized medicine” (i.e., the compromise health care reform legislation). Check it out. 

This may not surprise you, but Peter Kinder is still telling the public that federal health care legislation will have "catastrophic" consequences for the state budget to the tune of $500 million per year.  This is not true. Kinder and his fellow partisans has been corrected on this point for months, by The Beacon, the Associated Press, The Star, and several times on Kinder's favorite online media outlet, Fired Up! Missouri.

MediaMatters fact-checked Roy Blunt's appearance on CNN yesterday, and -- this will shock you -- Blunt chose to play fast and loose with the facts.  Talking about the House GOP's health care plan, he claimed that "the Congressional Budget Office said would have reduced coverage cost for every single American that was gonna buy insurance."

This isn't actually what the CBO said.  The CBO looked at average rates for people who would still be covered under the GOP plan (52 million children and working-age people would remain uninsured), and said there would be "a great deal of uncertainty" for individuals and families.  And because Blunt and Republicans refused to follow through on their promise to make coverage affordable for people with pre-existing conditions, folks in poor health would certainly see higher rates -- if they find coverage. 

Todd Akin sure is confident that God is on Todd Akin's team. This morning:

[Todd Akin] credited divine intervention with the January election of Scott Brown, R-Mass., which deprived Democrats of the 60-seat majority needed to block fillibusters [sic]. Akin said he hoped God would intervene again in blocking the bill.

Peter Kinder needs to start getting his news from... news sources. This afternoon, Kinder tweeted that Warren Buffett has called the compromise federal health care legislation "2,000 pages of nonsense."

@PeterKinder: Obama supporter Warren Buffet, on #ObamaCare: "2,000 pages of nonsense." So, the Prez says, Full Speed ahead! #Demsoffthecliff! #pdk #TCOT

Kinder's tweet is misleading in several ways. First and foremost: Buffett didn't say what Kinder is telling his followers he said.  Second, while Buffett is critical of the current legislation because he thinks it doesn't do enough to reign in costs, Buffett says he "would vote for the Senate bill" rather than do nothing.  And third, Buffett is actually calling for more aggressive health care legislation -- something Kinder most certainly does not want.

In the same interview misquoted by Kinder, Buffett said "I would vote for the Senate bill":

No, if it was a choice today between plan A, which is what we've got [i.e., the status quo], or plan B, what is in front of--the Senate bill, I would vote for the Senate bill. But I would much rather see a plan C that really attacks costs.

For a man who has been in Washington as long as Roy Blunt, you'd think he'd know a thing or two about the way Congress has conducted itself in recent years.  Saturday, Blunt told a Lincoln Days crowd, “Tax policy is the only thing that I know of that we have used reconciliation for."

Democratic leaders in the Senate are currently contemplating the use of the "reconciliation" process to pass a handful of fixes to the health care reform bill already passed with a 60-vote supermajority.  The idea is that the House can pass the Senate bill, and then changes to the full bill can pass the Senate with 51-vote majorities.  (It's a little crazy that all this posturing is about allowing a majority to pass fixes that Republicans want -- like the exemption for Nebraska's state share of Medicaid expansion -- but that's a topic for another day.)

Blunt's statement about the use of a reconciliation process isn't even close to true. As noted in the Post-Dispatch about Blunt's comments, both parties have passed major changes with simple majorities in recent years. 

As put together by PICO, via Faith in Public Life.

Via Roy Temple's new blog, "A Closer Look"

Roy Blunt's many, many failures as leader of the House Republican's Health Care Solutions Group may be a key reason why he's not one of the nine House Republicans attending today's health care summit at the Blair House. 

Instead, Blunt has been named to the Junior Varsity "Truth" Squad by Minority Leader John Boehner.  Choosing Blunt choice to be part of anything approximating a "Truth Squad" on health care matters is....um... ironic.

• Blunt Receives Coveted "Pants On Fire" Award From PolitiFact.com
• Blunt Assessment: "Some of what he knows just isn’t true"
• Roy Blunt On Death Panels: "It's Easy for That Debate to Go Either Way"
• After months of research, Blunt still woefully misinformed about Missourians' health care struggles
• Even The Mind-Numbingly Dumb Talking Points Are Wrong
• Blunt Fibs Again About His Health Care Record
• What Roy Blunt Used To Think About Long, Complicated Health Care Bills
• Large Majorities Dismiss GOP Attacks On Health Care As "Scare Tactics"
• Blunt Stands By False Claim That Undocumented Immigrants Will Receive Benefits in President's Proposals
• Blunt Assessment: "Astonishing Inaccuracy"
• Roy Blunt: "Medicare has never done anything to make people more healthy"
• Roy Blunt: It would have been "best" if Medicare and Medicaid never existed
• Blunt: My Four-Page Memo is "Actually Much More Detailed" Than Other Health Care Proposals

Roy Blunt, Chairman of the House Republicans' Health Care Solutions Group, isn't planning on taking any solutions to this week’s planned health care summit.  In fact, he isn't even sure he's going; Blunt is apparently worried that talking about ways to expand access to affordable health care might be a "waste of time."

Tellingly, the White House has invited Republicans to post their health care plan on their website in advance of the summit.... but they've refused.