Why Aren't Deficit Hawks Telling the House to Pass the Senate Health Care Bill?
Well, real deficit hawks are:
Sam Stein: Orszag Calls Senate Health Care Bill Biggest Cost-Container Ever Considered: The health care bill before the Senate would cut costs and reform health-care delivery more than any piece of legislation in American history, White House budget director Peter Orszag declared on Wednesday. "The bottom line is the bill that is currently on the Senate floor contains more cost containment and delivery system reforms in its current form than any bill that has ever been considered on the Senate floor period," the Office of Management and Budget director told reporters during a conference organized by the publication Health Affairs....
The OMB director cited four key aspects of the bill: its deficit neutrality and the inclusion of a commission that would restrain Medicare spending, an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans, and delivery system reforms.... "It depends what you mean by cost containment. If you are talking about attempts at reform of the overall healthcare system, not just government system but the overall healthcare system I think that's true," said Josh Gordon, policy coordinator at the Concord Coalition, a non-partisan federal budget analysis organization. "Congress has never done anything to try and restrain the growth of healthcare costs. We've never tried to change the healthcare delivery system from fee for service -- the Congress has never considered that."
"If you're looking at cost containment as being lowering healthcare inflation through delivery system reform, this bill reforms that more than any other bill prior," Gordon added. "Though relatively few bills ever make it onto the floor of the Senate, so this jumps to the top of the pack just for that procedural reason"...
It's only fake deficit hawks that aren't...
