It is stunning to me that President Obama would yet again try to push the popularly rejected Obamacare plan through Congress. Apparently, his new proposal is more of the same, leaning more toward the Senate version than the House, e.g. no public option. The tax on “Cadillac” health insurance is put off to 2018, after Obama leaves office! What a joke. Moreover, the proposal is so non specific that the CBO can’t even score the costs! From the story:
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Monday that it cannot score President Barack Obama’s health reform proposal because it lacks enough detail. The White House claims that the president’s proposal will reduce the budget deficit by $100 billion over the next 10 years and by about $1 trillion over the second decade by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse and cutting “government overspending.” But the CBO said it is not able to verify those claims.
The whole CBO dance has been a sham anyway. It is required to accept assumptions contained in the bill even if they are unlikely to ever come true. And once a law is enacted, Congress is free to change the law in ways that completely go against those original assumptions. But now, even that cynical game of smoke and mirrors is collapsing.
Will Obamacare pass? I have no idea. But it could be that history will show that the president foolishly broke the spine of his presidency trying to force a health care system remake down the throats of the American people after they clearly and overwhelmingly rejected that approach. You can’t refuse to listen to the people and ultimately succeed as a politician.
