The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has just come out with its findings that the Senate Finance Committee version of the bill, while not my personal favorite to date, will actually reduce the deficit over 10 years. Matt Ygelsias posts the chart here.
Fox News Anchor Shep Smith won't let Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) spout the same old fear-inducing myths about the Public Option unchallenged:
Former Senate Majority Leaders Bill Frist and Bob Dole both come out favorite healthcare reform as is currently being fashioned. In Dole's case he chastises his own Republican Party for knee-jerk partisanship. (It looks like Obama is able to find the bipartisanship he seeks -- only with GOPers no longer in office.)
And now an idea started by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) has the potential to end the debate and get a Public Option passed: giving individual states the right to Opt-Out of the government run insurance plan if they like. This requires a kind of proactive Federalism on the part of the states, and thereisnospoon over at DailyKos outlines the benefits of this approach (headlines -- go here for details):
- It forces GOP legislators to put up or shut up, leaving them in a very uncomfortable position.
- It leaves the rest of us with a strong public option, even after it's watered down.
- It hampers the ability of Republicans to lie about healthcare issues.
- Businesses will have an incentive to move to blue states.
The latter could be a major plus for California, with our now 12% unemployment rate. But the big news would be, as the piece points out with its own partisan opinion as to who would win:
Rarely do the Left and the Right have a head-to-head opportunity to prove out, in real time, the relative superiority of their respective value systems and legislative choices, with real and immediate consequences not only for the partisan legislators involved, but for the legitimacy of a Party's entire ideological underpinnings.
I say let the contest begin.
