Posted by
Defend America on Friday, December 11, 2009 11:43:57 PM
First, the CMS report released today:
Bill Makes Health Care More Expensive Than Doing Nothing At All
CMS: “This Bill Would Increase [Health Expenditures] By An Estimated Total Of $234 Billion”
CMS: “…We Estimate That Total National
Health Expenditures Under This Bill Would Increase By An Estimated
Total Of $234 Billion (0.7 Percent) During Calendar Years 2010-2019…” (“Estimated
Financial Effects Of The ‘Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act Of
2009,’ As Proposed By The Senate Majority Leader On November 18, 2009,”
Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services, P.4, 12/10/09)
http://republican.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blogs.View&Blog_Id=8d052053-5c88-4b60-9070-2c30c0dd7664
Now, the analysis:
Tottering [Rich Lowry]
The
Reid bill is really tottering now. "If this thing falls apart, you can
look back to today as the tipping point," says a Republican aide in the
Senate, echoing what Lamar Alexander notes in the Costa post below.
First, there was last night's CNN poll showing 61 percent opposition.
Then, there was the devastating CMS report today. "Nobody went to the
floor that I could see to defend it on the Democratic side," says the
aide. The back-drop for all this is the non-deal that Reid hyped as a
break-through earlier this week, only to have it unravel almost
immediately. Even Bill Nelson says the Medicare buy-in is basically a
"non-starter." "You're starting to see other Democrats nibbling around
the edges," the aide says. He predicts that if one Democrat comes out
clearly against the Reid bill, others will follow, in a dynamic like
the unexpectedly decisive defeat of the amnesty bill a few years ago.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTU3MDZjMTgzZWI3MDI5MzlhYmM0MGVhNjI4N2IxMWY=
Humpty Dumpty Harry Reid [Robert Costa]
Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican and GOP conference chair, tells NRO that Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) is “all tied up in a knot.”
“All of the king’s horses and all of the king’s men may not be able
to put 60 together again,” says Alexander, in reference to the (barely)
60 votes Reid got last month to bring his bill to the floor. “With two
weeks until Christmas, Democrats find themselves in the awkward
position of trying to pass a 2,000-page bill — a bill which most of
them admit they don’t know much about.”
Alexander cites the new report
from the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services (CMS) as a potential death blow to Reid’s cause. The CMS, a
division of the Department of Health and Human Services
, says that if Reid’s bill became law, America would spend $234 billion more on health care over the next decade.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjhmNTIyMzMyNGEzMDRkMWRkNmU1ZWJkNmY2MjI2Yzc=