The CBO did a mark-up on the Baucus Bill - but there is no bill. As noted at NRO:
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, says that the new CBO report is “an estimate of a concept, not a formal cost analysis of an actual bill.”
“What we know at this point is that the bill cuts Medicare, raises taxes, and increases insurance premiums for tens of millions of Americans,” says Alexander. “It imposes onerous new costs on states and is likely to increase the federal debt. We need to see the actual bill text and know its exact text before we begin a lengthy debate about whether it’s the right direction for our country.”
WSJ: The major provisions of ObamaCare already have been tried. They've led to increased costs and reduced access to care.
Rove: The GOP Is Winning the Health-Care Debate: Gallup says independents now favor Republicans by nine points.
Is the GOP folding?
Gateway:
Currently, only 29% of Americans say it’s more important to give people a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option than to keep their current plan.
But, facts don't matter to the agenda driven democrat-media complex.
Insty:
GETTING SNEAKY: New plan might allow Dems to slip public option through Senate.
Senate Democrats desperate to find a way to pass a health care bill that includes a federal insurance plan may have come up with a way to do it without putting moderate members who oppose it in political jeopardy.
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is weighing a plan to bring the final health care bill to the floor without a public option — making it much easier to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster — and then adding the provision later as an amendment.
Yeah, that’ll work . . . .
Via Marginal Rev:
Jim Capretta looks at the Baucus healthcare bill and concludes that, because the subsidies phase out as income rises, it imposes an effective marginal tax rate on income of about 30 percent for many families. Add that figure to the income tax, the payroll tax, and the phase-out of the EITC and "the effective, implicit tax rate for workers between 100 and 200 percent of the federal poverty line would quickly approach 70 percent — not even counting food stamps and housing vouchers."
Whatever the Baucus bill will say, we can be certain that it is designed to screw things up badly enough that people will beg for single-payer government-controlled medicine.
Upper photo: Are you too young to know who those Docs are?
Lower photo via Jammie's piece on the NHS
