ObamaCare: Who loves the Baucus bill?

posted at 8:37 am on September 17, 2009 by Karl

The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson asks, “Does Anybody Actually Like the Baucus Health Care Bill?” Thompson has a big list of those who do not like what is supposed to be the foundation for a bipartisan compromise on healthcare reform: (1) Republicans; (2) unions; (3) liberal politicians; (4) Governors; (5) strong universal coverage folks; and (6) insurers, device makers and labs. It is a list that helps explain why supposedly centrist healthcare proposals died in 1994. And that final group is especially important, as opposition from business is the best hope of keeping Sen. Olympia Snowe from lending Baucus some RINO cover. But I digress.

The answer to Thompson’s question is “yes.” The Congressional Budget Office loves the Baucus Bill… sort of. The CBO scores the Baucus proposal as reducing the deficit not only over the first 10 years, but the first 20 years. Given the political damage that CBO scores inflicted on the more liberal healthcare bills floating though Congress, and Pres. Obama’s repeated insistence that healthcare reform be deficit-neutral (albeit retreating from “bending the cost curve downward”), the favorable CBO analysis here leaves liberal Democrats in an uncomfortable position. The bill that actually does what Pres. Obama claims to want is unpalatable to most of the Left.

As for the Right, Peter Suderman and Greg Mankiw both note that the CBO also flags a major problem with the Baucus plan:

These projections assume that the proposals are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. For example, the sustainable growth rate (SGR) mechanism governing Medicare’s payments to physicians has frequently been modified (either through legislation or administrative action) to avoid reductions in those payments. The projected savings for the Chairman’s proposal reflect the cumulative impact of a number of specifications that would constrain payment rates for providers of Medicare services. The long-term budgetary impact could be quite different if those provisions were ultimately changed or not fully implemented.

In other words — like most Americans — the CBO has no trust the Congress will actually follow through on promises of future fiscal discipline. Robert J. Samuelson noted the same issue, even before the Baucus plan was unveiled. The CBO’s friendly score for the Baucus proposal may boost its prospects in the Senate. But it may be that the general public’s general understanding that government programs grow or die — and virtually never die — will extend to the Baucus plan as well.

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