Opportunity Knocks
Rove at WSJ: Public support for health care reform tanking, could take Congressional Dems with it in 2010. The only part he doesn’t address is whether Republicans are positioned or even trying to do anything about it.
Gateway notes a disregard for the numbers in the media cheerleading section. Maybe that’s why House and Senate Dems are hopeful they can still line up votes. The Hill: House Dems reckon they’re zeroing in on the magic 218 for a public option.
Congressional Budget Office* and NYT on Baucus: It will reduce deficits over the next decade by slowing the growth of Medicare and by taxing you! It’s great news, if (A) you believe this in anyway approximates what will finally end up on the House and Senate floors, (B) you believe those numbers represent any kind of reality anyway and (C) you enjoy being taxed for the privilege of having health care insurance. It’s even greater news if you ignore the fact that its being trumpeted as a great success by people who just drove the deficit up to $1.4 trillion, and aren’t done yet. Which means that in the net deficit count, the Dems are still down … $1.3 and some odd trillion.
WSJ: New math boosts health care bill, but leaves plenty of reasons to hate it intact.
Meanwhile, Legal Insurrection: Health care bill? What health care bill. They don’t have no stinking health care bill.
HotAir: The political cover Obama’s been looking for. “Gulp.”
NRO picks some holes in the non-bill’s “firewall,” and the assumption that Congress will limit its giveaway.
Malkin, less subtly: $829 billion … for starters.
Surber hurtfully channels the departed Billy Mays on health care. “Spending a trillion to save billions.” Here’s Billy on the economic stimulus … too bad his own health crisis took him out ahead of this debate. America needs you, Billy Mays.
All of which brings us back to 2010 and the GOP.
Gerald Seib, WSJ: It isn’t 1994 yet, but it could be. Uphill battle isn’t as steep as it was six months ago.
Gallup: GOP gaining on Dems for control of Congress.
Big, fat Memeorandum roundup.
* CBO, by the way, has adopted the latest terminology for illegal aliens. ”Unauthorized immigrants” make up one-third of the 25 million people who would not be insured under this plan. The GOP is making noise about the 25 million, noting it isn’t good bang for nearly $900 billion. Separate I’d note that “authorization” is a somewhat conditional term, suggesting a failure on the part of authorities to properly authorize the immigrants, as opposed to illegal behavior on the part of said aliens. As I’ve said, I prefer “document-challenged Americans.”
But before we get too hung up on the policy implications of semantics, I thought there were 12 million “unauthorized immigrants” in this country. Theoretically, they should constitute nearly half of that 25 million uninsured number. That one-third of 25 million estimate, or a little more than 8 million, suggests something like 4 million of them are insured. Interesting. By employers or by state and federal programs? Or are they wealthy enough to pay for it out of pocket? INS and IRS might want to get on that. As long as we’re creating electronic health care databases, it might be a good way to get at the illegals.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:46 am on Thursday, October 8, 2009
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