I have not blogged much on the details of the various health care bills, the CBO scoring, etc., because so many people have followed that issue much closer than I have. One of those people is Keith Hennessey, and from what I have read it seems to me that it would be difficult for anyone to be deeply informed of where the health debate is now without reading this post of his today. If I had the power to assign homework, Hennessey’s post would be at the top of my required reading list.
There is too much in it that deserves quoting for me to quote any of it. Just read the whole thing. Oh, wait. There is one thing I’ll quote, not because it’s the most important but because I don’t recall seeing the point — that all the current bills would bend the “cost curve” upward, not downward — made so well elsewhere:
… these bills would increase total health insurance spending relative to current law. I therefore believe the bills fail in the core objective defined by the President.
In addition to the above economic point, there’s a simple Washington-based argument that reinforces my conclusion: the industries that generate income from health spending generally support these bills. They know that the government mandates will, on net, increase total spending on health care and health insurance, the opposite of the President’s correctly stated policy goal. If these bills actually reduced health spending relative to current law, the insurers, doctors, hospitals, and other medical providers would oppose them. Remember that the insurance industry champions the individual mandate. How many other industries would like the U.S. government to force you to buy their product, and then prohibit you from buying inexpensive versions of it?
I’ll close by making one other point, not limited to Hennessey’s analysis but prompted by it, or rather by its easy availability for me, and thousands of others, to read: this is another example, I think, of how the Internet may have changed everything.
In the past proposed legislation was scored by the CBO and thoroughly analyzed by smart, informed lobbyists, providing legislators (if they chose to avail themselves of it) of both general and detailed arguments for and against whatever was being considered. Legislators were very much aware that these lobbyists, moreover, represented influential organizations and constituencies, and votes were rarely if ever cast without awareness of who cared deeply and who was watching. Those organizations and constituencies and their lobbyists are of course still with us, but now they have been joined by thousands — indeed, tens or even hundreds of thousands — of ordinary people, i.e., voters, who have ready access to the sort of analyses available in the past only to those who employed high-paid lobbyists … and the legislators those lobbyists were hired to influence. Thus the audience of very, very well informed and highly concerned constituents is probably larger now than it has ever been on any legislation.
In this regard, this August 25 Rasmussen poll may be the one that should concern Congress more than anything else:
Most voters think they understand the health care reform legislation proposed by President Obama better than Congress does — and about as well as the president himself.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 51% of voters rate their understanding of the health care plan as good or excellent. Only 21% say their understanding of it is poor.
By contrast, just 22% say Congress has a good or excellent understanding of the plan. Thirty-five percent (35%) say Congress’ knowledge of the proposal is poor.
The real significance of the August town hall meetings is not that they were raucous but that they were filled with voters who in fact were better informed about the proposed health care legislation than their representatives.
ADDENDUM
With regard to the Senate Finance Committee “concepts” just scored by the CBO, it is impossible for either the Senators or their constituents to be better informed about the bill because, as law professors William Jacobson and Jonathan Adler have reminded us, THERE IS NO BAUCUS BILL. Jacobson:
THERE IS NO BAUCUS BILL.
The CBO scored the concepts described by the Baucus Committee. There is no legislative text. None. Baucus and his Democratic colleagues refused to reduce their concepts to actual legislation prior to a vote….
Your esteemed Senators have so little respect for you that some of them are willing to vote in favor of legislation which does not exist because THERE IS NO BAUCUS BILL.
The actual legislation will be drafted in secret by Harry Reid and a few other people, including staffers whose names and political connections you never will know, and the resulting legislation will be rammed through the Senate and House before anyone gets to read and analyze it.
Months of debate mean nothing. It’s all smoke and mirrors by people who think you are too stupid to realize what is going on.
Have I made myself clear on this? THERE IS NO BAUCUS BILL.
