CBO Caves on Health Care; GOP Senators Next?

It turns out that President Obama is right--a government takeover of healthcare is a great way to reduce the deficit!

This afternoon the Congressional Budget Office, the "non-partisan" budget office beholden to a Democrat-controlled Congress--released its estimate of the cost of the Senate Finance Commitee health care bill--the Baucus bill.

The CBO concludes that the Baucus proposal will--wait for it--save $81 billion over 10 years.

The CBO is careful to caveat that the "mark" it analyzed is not a bill at all, but a conceptual framework for a bill, and therefore is subject to "substantial uncertainty."

The bill--according to the CBO, mind you--will require most individuals and families to buy health insurance and penalize them if they don't; will tax purchasers of high-cost policies with an excise tax; and will subsidize individuals and families (not yours, of course) who buy insurance through government-sponsored "exchanges." "Exchanges" are not to be confused with a "public option." Of course not.

The bill, according to the budget office, will drastically increase Medicare eligibility but also "substantially reduce payment rates for most services." In plain English this can be translated as "You doctors and med students out there can suck eggs."

The CBO admits that the bill will "cost" over $800 billion in new outlays over the 10-year period. (And this is the so-called "centrist" bill designed to attract Republicans!). So how does this monstrosity actually save money? Says the CBO:

The costs are partly offset by $201 billion in revenues from the excise tax on high-premium
insurance plans and $110 billion in net savings from other sources. The net
cost of the coverage expansions would be more than offset by the
combination of other spending changes that CBO estimates would save
$404 billion over the 10 years and other provisions that JCT and CBO
estimate would increase federal revenues by $196 billion over the same
period.

Blah. blah. blah. This turkey has about as much chance of being deficit-neutral as Chicago has of getting the 2016 Olympics. But if it does happen to turn out that way, it will be as a result of massive taxes, penalties and mandates on individuals, families and small business.

What makes the CBO report so troubling is that it gives so-called Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine just the cover she needs to vote this thing on to the Senate floor. She has tried to come off as some sort of deficit hawk by claiming she would not vote for the Baucus bill if it increased the deficit. She has also vowed not to vote for a bill that contained a government-run health care option.

Voila! According to CBO, this bill fits the bill. Snowe will now likely vote for it, and give the Dems and Obama the "bi-partisan" legislation they crave. And to make things worse, according to the well-connected Erick Erickson of Redstate.com, other Senate Republicans are on the verge of folding on health care.

There is still a ways to go before a government takeover of health care becomes law. But this latest development brings the whole damnable thing one step closer.

Read the entire CBO letter to Senator Baucus here.