Greg Sargent is reporting that Speaker Pelosi will be receiving even better news in connection with the House's versions of HCR:
In another step forward for the public option, I’m told reliably by a source that House leaders have been given a new Congressional Budget Office “score” finding that the evolving House bill — when you include a robust public option — reduces the deficit and is under the President’s cost goal of $900 billion.
Sargent's post is only 2 paragraphs long, so Fair Use restrictions prevent me from copying the other one, but this is an update on the CBO score reported over the weekend in WaPo (can't find the link, and Sargent's link is broken, will update if I can).
Hopefully, this should continue to ratchet up the pressure on both the Blue Dogs in the House, as well the conservadems in the Senate. Speaker Pelosi has a plan, this is another step forward, potentially a big one. In concert with the scoring of the Rep. Weiner's Single Payer amendment, things should continue to move our way.
Barely a diary, but if more comes out, will update.
UPDATE: Via calchala in the comments, Politico, everyone's favorite, weighs in with their usual CW slant, stating that "moderates and conservative Democrats" could object to this less expensive scoring, you know, because they are all about fiscal responsibility, so they may want the bill to force the PO to negotiate with providers on an individual basis.
Well, it makes sense to Politico...
UPDATE 2: theone718 alerts us to this story from Brian Beutler at TPM, fleshing things out just a bit more. Beutler gets the slant right, in that while it is slightly more expensive than the Baucus Bill, the House plan covers more people, at less cost per person, i.e. more bang for the buck.
And the Senate bill will probably be more expensive than the Baucus Bill once it is merged with the HELP Bill, so we're not quite to "apples to apples" yet, the House bill is looking strong.