David Brooks is a policy turd.

Actually, Bobo Brooks wants us proles to all die so the 'nation' can retain its 'vibrancy'.

Bobo is a monster.

Steve, I don't know how you stay sane wading through the bullshit day in and day out.

Glad outright liars are able to be published.

And what jm said.

The newspapers, the few oligarchs that own and run them, and the established editorial personalities who have built their reputations carefully over decades have a meme they want to push, and by God they're going to push it.

Facts be damned.

What Broder, Brooks, and others mean is that if CBO says it will bust the budget and increase the National Debt, their word is law. And if CBO says it brings the deficit down, they're not believable. Which means no matter what kind of Health Care Reform bill is on the table, Broder, Brooks and the others will reject it. And that's the point.

The problem is, some of these reforms may work. Some may not. No policy expert is really sure. But what the Dems want to do is create a massive new spending expansion and then bet that those reforms do work enough to pay for that new entitlement. Why not have the reforms first, then expand to universal coverage? Seems less risky.

For 8 years the Republicans didn't care about cost containment, of anything -- that much is evident. Why should Republicans care now about cost containment?

Yer kidding, right, Steve? We've known all along that the GOP would fight any reform of health-care in the US. The GOP knows well that if even a decent bill comes out of the process and Obama signs it, and it actually works well to some mild degree...that the GOP is toast. They won't hold the Presidency again within the lifetimes of any of them.

So they're never going to debate the bill on the merits. They can't afford to. That bill is the end of the GOP as a national party. If the legislation fails to deliver, that's another story, but if it doesn't fail, the GOP's had it, and they know it.

Which is why they've resorted to bald-faced lying about it. They got nothin' else.

"No one can say with any confidence exactly what might work and what might not".

Bull shit. I can. A robust public option available to anyone and that uses its muscle to negotiate prices will work. So will eliminating the health insurance industry's anti-trust exemption. Make a case to convince me otherwise. And if Mr. Gruber thinks the existing bill contains everything he can think of to "bend the curve", perhaps he needs to spend a few more minutes pondering the concept of competition in the marketplace. And before I step down from my soap box, might I be so intemperate as to observe that the public could be much better served with a whole new slate of congress-critters. Hopefully a group that sees the benefit of busting up the media cabal as well. And now let me tell you what I really think.........

I think I need some medication.

Help me out here. If they are so worried about cutting costs, and they mean government costs, why aren't they worried about cutting costs to the consumers who pay huge premiums for healthcare coverage under the current system. Since under a government-managed, non-profit system, people would not pay huge premiums and then, presumably, lower ones, even if they paid more in taxes this would still be lower than what they're paying to for-profit insurance companies.

Classis bait-and-switch by free market fetishists.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Gruber to be invited to the Sunday mouse circus. It's not news unless it's "conservatives" ranting against the evils of anything and everything proposed by a Democrat.

Tried everything? What about Medicare for all or single payer? As long as the for-profit insurance companies are involved, cost cutting is a joke. Without a real public option that directly competes with private insurance and is not restricted only to high cost recipients, there is no effective "reform." Re-Form means to change the shape, radically, not cosmetically.

Chopin, you said it quite well. I posted my bit while yours was still loading. Thanks! It is funny how "everything" doesn't include the best solutions. Even these professional economists seem blind to the whole spectrum.

The Democrats like Obama/Pelosi/Reid have to lie in order to sell the public on this "budget busting" bill. Reid: "The Bill will save lives, save Medicare and reduce the deficit." are all big fat lies. If Reid was honest he would have said "The bill will cost lives, destroy Medicare and increase the deficit." The Preventative Health panel that recommended that women under 50 should not get mammograms will be given great power in the Bill to determine what procedures are allowable or not based on "cost effectiveness" will cost lives, maybe your wife, daughter or mom. The 500 billion dollar cuts to Medicare will destroy Medicare which is already operating in the red. The over trillion dollar in new spending cannot be fully paid for with higher taxes and cuts to Medicare given the fact the US debt is already unsustainable and the economy is going down the tubes. Obama/Pelosi/Reid and the rest of the Democrats are all a bunch of big fat liars who will not have to personally bear the burden of the most horrible bill ever as they will all be covered by their "Cadillac plans" while the rest of us are forced to stand in line waiting for that surgery or treatment we need to save our lives that some government bureaucrat has outlawed as not "cost effective".

Nixon would have no compunction about imposing wage and price controls.

James, James. Let's review.

Obama: thin and athletic, an excellent b-ball player.

Reid: slim and dapper.

Pelosi: an elegant, stylish grandmother, trim and energetic.

Karl Rove: big, fat, liar.

(troll)

Apparently, no one actually reads Ezra's posts to the end, or follows his comments thread; I've seen several people approvingly cite Ezra's "there's really cost control in there" post without noting that his commenters point out, calmly... that there isn't a lot of cost control in the bill. And that's the reality. The proposals in the bill are bare attempts at doing anything about cost, which makes sense, since the bill is aimed, mainly, at improving access to insurance. The hard work of controlling the cost of healthcare begins, at a minimum, with reassessing reimbursement rates for Medicare doctors and hospitals - a task the bill essentially throws at a commission (which they can ignore and overrule). The bill also does nothing to attack the current major problem in Medicare: the fact that doctor's reimbursement rates have been stagnating for several years, and docs are threatening to drop patients.

All of which ignores the fact that the big problem in cost control stems from a more fundmental problem: the fee for service system (of Medicare) which creates incentives to do more services, and thus get paid more. Yes, there's some "testing" of "alternative, per patient" care payments... but that's called capitation, and most HMO execs will tell you that capitation doesn't work, and docs and hospitals generally loathe it because it - guess what - makes it harder to provide services and make money doing it.

Brooks and Broder surely have their problems... but the lack of serious attempts to address cost issues in health care is simply an accurate depiction of what the health care reform bill has become. It may, modestly, slow the rate of growth in health care... but that's a meaningless distinction, given that health care costs are far out of proportion to the rest of our economy. And in the rush to claim some success, any success (while still fetishizing the notion of a "public option" to magically solve all problems), lefties continue to ignore the obvious: this bill is not a great proposal, it has problems... and does not do what what people try to argue it does. And as much as I'll reluctantly accept modest insurance reforms as some signal of success (though if anything like Stupak gets through... it's curtains for the Dems), this bill has lots of problems... and does not accomplush desperately needed reforms... like cost control. We should, at least, start from a position of recognizing what is - and is not - happening here. Without that, winning is meaningless.

I do so love reading a really stupid post full of partisan drivel. Let's take a look, shall we?

The Democrats like Obama/Pelosi/Reid have to lie in order to sell the public on this "budget busting" bill.

Really? Then it should be trivial for you to point out the "lies," right?

Reid: "The Bill will save lives, save Medicare and reduce the deficit." are all big fat lies.

Um, no, actually they aren't. Covering more people saves lives, period. The non-partisan CBO has researched the bill and agreed that it reduces the deficit. As for saving Medicare, without changes of some kind, the budget for Medicare will bust, far sooner and far more dramatically than will the budget for Social Security. In short, Reid told the truth and you are, blatantly and stupidly, lying.

The Preventative Health panel that recommended that women under 50 should not get mammograms will be given great power in the Bill to determine what procedures are allowable or not

No, actually, it won't, which is why you can't point to a single line in the bill that supports that silly assertion. Moreover, not only did you get the details of the recommendation badly wrong, not only did you get the information wrong as to why the recommendation was made (free clue: it had zilch to do with "cost effectiveness"), the panel that made the actual recommendation did so on the basis of the available evidence about such procedures, evidence which you clearly know nothing about.

The 500 billion dollar cuts to Medicare will destroy Medicare which is already operating in the red.

ROFL.... I just love a self-contradicting sentence. If Medicare is operating in the red, then cutting 500 billion dollars will not "destroy" it, since cutting your budget is precisely what you are *supposed* to do when it is "operating in the red." As it happens, you've got the details wrong, and the bulk of the cuts are coming in areas where we are needlessly subsidizing insurance companies to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Aren't morons like you supposed to be in favor of eliminating wasteful spending?

The over trillion dollar in new spending cannot be fully paid for with higher taxes and cuts to Medicare

First of all, it's not "over trillion dollar" [sic]; it's *less* than a trillion dollars. Secondly, the CBO again disagrees with you, since the proposed cuts and taxes *more* than pay for the overall cost, *reducing* the deficit, both in the short term and, more importantly, in the long term.

given the fact the US debt is already unsustainable and the economy is going down the tubes.

None of which is relevant to the discussion of this bill, since the bill is fully paid for. And, of course, the economy and the debt are where it is today because of the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans. Funny how you fail to notice that.

Obama/Pelosi/Reid and the rest of the Democrats are all a bunch of big fat liars who will not have to personally bear the burden of the most horrible bill ever as they will all be covered by their "Cadillac plans" while the rest of us are forced to stand in line waiting for that surgery or treatment we need to save our lives that some government bureaucrat has outlawed as not "cost effective".

Um, moron, has it really escaped your notice that one provision of the Senate bill *requires* that Congress must use the same insurance exchange that everyone else uses? Or that "insurance bureaucrats" do a far better job at denying treatment than any government bureaucrat has ever done? Or that tens of millions of people can't even get proper insurance, so can't even reach the point where their treatment will be denied? It's denied before they even start.

Nice going. You were wrong on every major assertion you made. It's rare to find such a fact-free, not to mention moronic, rant.

Republicans should be applauding these efforts. This is their signature concern, right? Cutting costs? Saving money? Fiscally responsible policymaking?

huh???? where on Earth did such a ridiculous thought ever come from that cutting cots, saving money, being fiscally responsible are republican concerns or objectives? Oh yea, from the mouths of republicans.

And since there is nary a word of truth that ever escapes a republican's mouth, the above notion is completely absurd.

Oh, and how about the biggest pork barrel spending project ever hoisted on humanity in history - the republicans' very own US "defense Budget", a spending sink hole so humongous in its size and waste its way beyond obscene - its criminal in its opportunity cost to humanity.

God do I hate the partisan hackery that predominates on this website.

So, GOPers are now going after the *fact* that there is little in the respective bills to contain cost (of course they don't want costs contained anyway, since that eats into the profits of their corp masters, but what-the-heck), so all the little knee-jerk busy-bee partisan hack Dem bloggers start touting all the non-existent cost containment in the bill, and within the week it'll be conventional wisdom in the pseudo-prog bloggersphere that the bills actually constrain costs.