The Senate Finance Committee's ObamaCare bill will spend $829 billion over ten years, but fill-in CBS Evening News Maggie Rodriquez trumpeted how “according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the plan costs less than expected and would actually reduce the deficit. So why do Republicans still oppose it?”
Instead of explaining the skepticism toward how the massive additional spending could lead to less spending, reporter Nancy Cordes touted how “the new numbers give health care reform a much-needed boost” and credulously recounted the spending would be offset by fees, taxes “and trims to Medicare.” When Republicans proposed a reduction in the rate of increase of Medicare spending the media screamed about “cuts.” Now a $400 billion change is merely a “trim.” And who really believes that proposal will ever pass?
“The result,” Cordes maintained, “a net savings to government of $81 billion over 10 years” before she championed: “It's estimated the new bill would allow 29 million Americans who don't currently have coverage, Americans like Javier Salinas, to buy it.” Nonetheless, “Republicans still oppose the bill, despite the lower price tag.”
CBS was hardly alone in gullibility. Front page Thursday Washington Post headline: “Health-Care Bill Wouldn't Raise Deficit, Report Says.”
Earlier, about The Early Show: “CBS Touts Baucus Health Care Bill 'Pays For Itself,' 'Saves Billions.'"
The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript of the story on the Thursday, October 8 CBS Evening News:
MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: Now to the battle over health care. The Senate Finance Committee said today it will vote on its reform plan next week, and according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the plan costs less than expected and would actually reduce the deficit. So why do Republicans still oppose it? Here's Nancy Cordes.
NANCY CORDES: The new numbers give health care reform a much-needed boost.
SENATOR MAX BAUCUS (D-MT): I'm very pleased.
CORDES: Pleased because congressional number crunchers now say the $829 billion price tag for the Senate Finance Committee's bill would be more than offset by fees on drug makers, taxes on top-dollar insurance plans, and trims to Medicare. The result, a net savings to government of $81 billion over 10 years. It's estimated the new bill would allow 29 million Americans who don't currently have coverage, Americans like Javier Salinas, to buy it. His family of four could get a subsidy of $5,500 a year for health insurance because they earn less than $88,000 annually.
JAVIER SALINAS, KITCHEN MANAGER: I can't sleep thinking what if one of my kids is going to get sick or, you know, something else, but with that help from the government, it's a peace of mind.
CORDES: Wealthier Americans would be required to buy insurance or pay a penalty, up to $750 a year. While businesses with more than 50 workers would have to pay up to $400 for every low-income worker they don't cover. That means the owner of the D.C. restaurant where Javier works would be exempt because he only has 32 employees. So your responsibilities wouldn't change at all.
FRANKIE DOYLE, OWNER OF PORT OF PIRAEUS RESTAURANT: Thank God. Thank God they wouldn't change at all because this year was our worst year ever in business.
CORDES: Republicans still oppose the bill, despite the lower price tag.
ERIC CANTOR, HOUSE MINORITY WHIP: The fact is the numbers are arrived at by taxing businesses, by taxing people who have insurance as well as cutting benefits for seniors. That's not an acceptable health care reform recipe.
CORDES: Plus, the recipe is still being written. This bill is one of five. It has to be reconciled with the others. So all those figures are bound to change.
—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center
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Comments Policy
Which has more credibility
October 9, 2009 - 09:22 ET by jdhawkWhich has more credibility - bambi, the first stupid liberal receiving the Nobel Peace Prize or obamacare will reduce the deficit? You decide.
Apparently, insanity isn't confined to our shores these days . . .
Something extradorindary to push this off the radar
October 9, 2009 - 09:22 ET by StarAZApparently last night, while we slept, peace broke out. I never get the memo! But The One got the Nobel Peace Prize. Didn't know they had a Teleprompter Reading Category. But I am not bitter.
The MSM is pathetic
October 9, 2009 - 09:29 ET by pwozOnly Fox has exposed the truth about this bill.
The Baucus bill sounds good, but it must be combined with another committee's bill, in order to get a vote. The other bill is from that union committee.. and guess what? They require a public option in their version.
Combine the two bills and we have more trillions in deficits.
Obamacare....
October 9, 2009 - 09:36 ET by adamsmithMaybe Republicans(and Independents,Libertarians,and even Democrats)oppose Obamacare because we've already spent this country to third world status. Add to that the financial success Medicare has been, with estimates anywhere from 37 to 100 trillion dollars in unfunded debt...
What the lefties still haven't considered is that socialism is great until you run out of somebody else's money. We're there....
→ MSRP
October 9, 2009 - 09:37 ET by Cool ArrowMaybe I don't want to trade in my old policy right now.
It's as though they took over the car companies to discover the secrets of convincing the consumer what they're really getting is a great deal.
I have yet to see any of them explain exactly how...
October 9, 2009 - 09:44 ET by JohnMcGrew...they will be able to:
- Immediately cover another 30-40 million...
- Mandate that my insurance company accept all comers, regardless of existing health...
- Mandate that my insurance company now completely pay for colonoscopies and other diagnostics on demand...
- Mandate that my insurance company comply with all kinds of other yet-to-be-made regulations to be determined by yet-to-be-made commissions...
...and yet expect me to believe that my coverage will not change or my rates will not go up.
It's probably because they can't.
Allow? No. Require? Yes
October 9, 2009 - 09:54 ET by CobraMan"It's estimated the new bill would allow 29 million Americans who don't
currently have coverage, Americans like Javier Salinas, to buy it."
Allow them to have health insurance? They're allowed to have it now. No one is stopping them from purchasing insurance.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus.
The US Supreme Court
That is some very expensive
October 9, 2009 - 09:57 ET by ninerdogThat is some very expensive insurance. I am coming up with almost 30,000 per person per year and that does no cover the est. 40 million. What a crap bill.
The claim that any
October 9, 2009 - 10:09 ET by mattmThe claim that any spending will reduce the deficit is like a kid asking Dad for $50, and then changing his request to $30 and saying, "well I'm saving you $20."
I'm
October 9, 2009 - 10:01 ET by jessieHI'm no math wiz, but I can add. What they propose is an out & out lie. It will cost us our freedom. That is not worth the risk. The govt. won't be satisfied till we are all under their control.
Baucus NOT a Bill
October 9, 2009 - 10:06 ET by slickwillie2001The 'Baucus Bill' is not a bill, it doesn't exist. All it is, is a framework, a list of concepts. The democratics learned from the House Bill that if you write it down the citizens can find it and read it, so they are not writing out the Baucus plan.
It also doesn't include a public option, which the democratics will put back in through an amendment or conference. The public option will blow the dollar amount up, to far more than $829B. In addition, as we saw with HR3200, the $829B over ten years lulls folks into thinking its run rate will be $82.9B a year, but it will end up far more than that.
$81 billion in smoke and
October 9, 2009 - 10:10 ET by dscott$81 billion in smoke and mirrors accounting is NOT a savings anymore than Bill Clinton balancing the budget using Social Security Trust fund surplus. It's a thinly veiled farce that yearns for public acceptance. Congress won't cut doctors fees for Medicare by 25% as they put in this bill, it's not going to happen. And even if they did, of necessity Medigap insurance rates would have to go up to make up the difference as the subordinate coverage. Boooooooooo. SLEAZY DEMOCRATS. BOOOOOOOOOO
Melding this bill with other bills will not make the numbers better. The bigger question is what did they leave out to get down from over a trillion to $829 billion?
Furthermore, reducing benefits to those seniors on Medicare Advantage by cutting out the program, that means over 10 million seniors will be forced to spend a thousand dollars apiece to get them back. This all just lies, lies and more lies for what? So AARP can make a killing selling Medigap policies? So Democrats can get more votes on the backs of seniors? Boooooooooo.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, starving the poor one gallon of ethanol at a time. Fill your tank with E85 and cull a village.
'Yet 'Republicans Still Oppose It'
October 9, 2009 - 10:08 ET by MightyMouthThat's because they don't believe it! (You Lie!)
The Dems will do anything to get this crap put on the American people! And we are all just sitting around with our collective thumbs up our arses watching it happen!
"The bureaucracy is growing to meet the needs of the growing bureaucracy"
Only in Washington
October 9, 2009 - 10:14 ET by richb313Only in Washington is it possible to have neary 1 Trillion Dollars in NEW SPENDING and somehow this is supposed to reduce the deficit? Apparently in the Washington Style of New Math does 5+5=-2.
It is all NEW SPENDING and the proposed cuts / savings will NEVER EVER materialise. Name any program in Washington where spending on it has decreased, just one example of it please. Maybe, just maybe if we had a history of actually eliminating wasteful spending and rooting out systemic corruption I would take a serious look at the numbers. Since there is no history of this a close examination is not needed as it is obvious they are just BS numbers to begin with.
Why should it matter if
October 9, 2009 - 10:36 ET by Tom PaineWhy should it matter if Republicans oppose the bill? The last time I checked the Democrats had an overwhelming majority in the House and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate – at least on paper. Since the Dems are all about truth and justice, they should have no problem slam dunking a health care bill through. This bill is such a dog that not even their rank and file will support it. Therefore they need to demonize the Republicans to provide a built in excuse for when the bill fails to pass. The better question for CBS to ask is why the Democrats aren’t universal in their support of the bill
Greater savings.
October 9, 2009 - 10:48 ET by CobraMan"“The result,” Cordes maintained, “a net savings to government of $81 billion over 10 years”"
I know how to reduce the deficit by almost a trillion. Let's NOT institute this "reform".
BTW, where's the "net savings" to the American Public? You know, the ones you're supposed to be helping to save money on health care? There isn't any. You don't save the American Public money by raising taxes. But that was the whole idea behind health care 'reform," wasn't it? To save US money? Well, show US the savings we'll achieve by increasing our taxes.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus.
The US Supreme Court
bias where?
October 9, 2009 - 10:58 ET by WatchesThe nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the bill will save the federal government money and cover lots of people, and the media reports it. Where's the liberal media bias?
You expect reporters to "explain the skepticism toward how the massive additional spending could lead to less spending"? First off, only idiots don't realize that saving more than you spend is what leads to less spending. I guess the media COULD take time out to "explain the skepticism" of idiots, but why do you advocate that they do so?
They say ...
October 9, 2009 - 11:08 ET by SentryDanThey say "the devil is in the details". Well, so far "We the People" haven't seen a whole lot of details in any of these bills. And so far, the only bill I have seen posted has been the House bill HR3200.
House bill HR3200 is nothing but a bunch of crap. Hard to read, but I did get that it will amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and the Social Security Act. Most of the other bills still out there are nothing more than a bunch of talking points. The politicians will have their people work out the details after the bills have been merged and passed. Of course,once they do that, the cost will go up significantly and the CBO numbers will be off (low) by hundreds of billions of dollars.
God help "We the People". Vote all the turkeys out of office. Tax increases, ha we ain't seen nothing yet.
Remember folks, Freedom isn't Free. It was bought with the blood and sacrifice of the men and women who are serving and who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces.
For those who fought for it, Freedom has a flavor that the protected will never know.
Also remember folks, that the way to SUPPORT THE TROOPS is to support their mission. Anyone who says that they support the troops but don't support their mission is lying about supporting the troops. And if you want to know, yes I do have a dog in the fight, he is a United States Marine.
The CBO also explains how
October 9, 2009 - 17:34 ET by Roger the ShrubberThe CBO also explains how tort reform alone could shave $69 billion off the price of health care over 20 years. So, why the resistance?
“The result,” Cordes
October 10, 2009 - 16:17 ET by MikeB“The result,” Cordes maintained, “a net savings to government of $81 billion over 10 years” I'm not sure I get this. Instead of spending an additional 1 trillion dollars over 10 years (dollars we don't have), Baucus proposes to spend $919 billion (which we also don't have), and that's a net savings of $81 billion? My math shows that is a net loss of 919 billion, not a savings of 81 billion.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan