Sort of like what produces CBO numbers
Far be it from your humble Veritaspac correspondent to advise Messrs. Trump, Ryan and McConnell on how to pass new healthcare legislation. Perhaps, though, we could recall for them some tips on how to do so from none other than the Master Health Care Expert, Barack Obama:
1. Summon the Director of the CBO to a sit down in the Oval Office with President Trump. Just for a chat, you understand. But out of it, the CBO chief, like his predecessor, might come up with some “useful” suggestions on how to make “Trumpcare” more salable:
a) hand out increased free benefits for everybody earning less than $100,000/year in the first 4 years of the new program. With modest tax increases in the last 6 years and of course, “score it” over the full 10 years. Keeping in mind of course that regulations and executive actions could easily void such assurances.
2. The “Bart Stupak” option: Offer an executive “letter” promising to give Planned Parenthood $1 billion per year for all eternity (as we know executive letters have a very short shelf life).
3. the “New York Compromise”: Commit to approving NY as a “Sanctuary State” and to appointing only transgenders as US attorneys for New York. (The term “transgender” can always be redefined later by executive order).
4. The “California Gold Rush” provision: Promise through a special “Koch Brothers tax” (a one time levy on the net wealth of libertarian and conservative billionaires; this might be subject to a lawsuit but no settlement likely until after passage of Trumpcare) to grant Gov. Jerry Brown $1 trillion to complete another 25 miles of high speed rail.
(Note: each of the above has precedent in Obamacare provisions, i.e., the “Louisiana Purchase”, the “Missouri Compromise”, the “Ben Nelson Nebraska Pact”, etc)
4. None of these will be made public until the bill is passed so Congress can “see what’s in it“.
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Overheard at my early morning breakfast restaurant:
“I’m going to lose my health insurance, thanks to Donald Trump. By 2025 nobody will have health insurance…”
This analysis was provided by a noted health care expert whose “side hustle” is part time cooking at at Denny’s. Rather than have to find another location for my daily toast and coffee, I did not attempt to engage the lady in any inquiries regarding the source of her keen insights.
However, I feel I’m almost forced to accept her conclusions because based on my fairly extensive reading and viewing of “news” reports and analyses, I’ve not been able to reach very many unassailable conclusions on the GOP’s “answer” to Obamacare so far. I am fairly sure, however, that the left’s “messaging” is obviously taking hold…at least at my local Denny’s.
However, one observation I do feel confident about is that the Congressional Budget Office”s (CBO) analysis is typically, an almost criminal waste of time, paper, and trees.
Anybody remember Doug Elmendorf?
To refresh…Mr. Elmendorf is the most recent former “non-partisan” CBO Director under President Obama. It was “Doug’s” work that helped make Obamacare possible. A Democratic party nominee to head the office, Elmendorf released the CBO’s initial analysis of Obamacare as it was pending in Congress.
If anyone recalls, it was not a favorable assessment of costs, coverages, etc., and predictably was not looked upon kindly by Mr. Obama.
The next thing we heard, Mr. Elmendorf was “invited” to a little chat with the former president in the Oval Office…rather an unusual event.
No one of course knows exactly the content of the conversation (there were no holdovers from the previous administration to leak it), but when the CBO Director emerged from the meeting, he was beaming. Like a schoolboy, Mr. Elmendorf was bubbling in the aftermath of a private meeting with the president, and wanted everyone, including his family to hear about it.
The other thing that apparently came out of the meeting was a conclusion by the Congressional Budget Office that, maybe their initial analysis was not exactly correct. In fact, upon further “reflection”, O’care was not so bad after all.
We did learn that Mr. Elmendorf did offer some helpful hints on how the bill could be “tweaked” to better improve its salability. Such a thing as collecting revenue from taxes, while withholding spending on benefits of the program until 4 years after implementation.
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Conservative Tree House Analysis of CBO
CBO Releases Analysis of Secretary Tom Price and Speaker Ryan Healthcare Proposal – Price Responds…
Any analysis of the current CBO projections for the Price/Ryan Healthcare proposal should keep in mind the original number of “uninsured” during the 2009/2010 debate over ObamaCare was 30 million.
The entire premise for ObamaCare in 2009 and 2010, as espoused by the people selling the need, was to cover those 30 million uninsured.
With that in mind, the fact that CBO projects uninsured coverage of 28 million in 2026 if no changes are madeto ObamaCare – means that seven years of healthcare chaos have resulted in coverage for only 2 million people.
Let that sink in.
The article has additional interesting numbers to offer.
DLH
