The Congressional Budget Hawk who killed the Clinton Healthcare Plan in 1993 due to numbers would vote "Yes" on the Senate Health Plan. That should help sway a lot of house congressional blue dogs who don't like the bill. They're the bigger problem at this point.
Ezra Klein speaks with Reischauer
But don't listen to me. Robert Reischauer is the head of the Urban Institute. He's also one of the CBO's most revered former directors, in no small part because his relentlessly honest cost estimates helped doom Bill Clinton's bill in 1994. I reached him earlier today and asked whether he thought this bill made fiscal sense. "Were I in Congress and asked to vote on this," he replied, "I'd vote in favor." The bill isn't perfect, he continued, "but it at least has the prospect for creating a platform over which more significant and far-reaching cost containment can be enacted."
The same cannot be said for the status quo.
There cannot be a more simpler phrase that can be uttered than the last line below. "The same cannot be said for the status quo." I think that encapsulates perfectly the situation we're in. The bill is perfect by no means. No one appears to be 100% completely happy with it, and yet passing it would do more to solve the plight of the uninsured and reign in the costs of the deficit than ANY OTHER PIECE OF LEGISLATION in decades, probably since medicare or before.
I understand why folks want to change it, but that time truly has ended. There's going to be a couple of minor differences in the WH proposal that comes out on Wed, but any major changes to this bill is basically done.
My final point should be echoed by Matt Yglesias: Matt Yglesias on Insurers v. Insurance Reform
Reacting to President Obama’s recent statements that he will move ahead with legislation, health insurance companies have enlisted hundreds of lobbyists in a full-court press against the proposed overhaul, which would force dramatic cuts and increased regulation on the industry. At the same time, insurers are pushing back against a separate bill approved by the House last week that would remove the industry’s antitrust exemption.
"Sticking it to insurance companies" should not be one of the primary goals of health care policy, so at the end of the day the meta-argument about who is and is not doing insurance companies’ bidding is of secondary importance in assessing the merits of the bill. But it’s worth being clear—insurers don’t like this plan very much.
This bill MUST PASS.