Alternet:
When the CBO scored an early draft of the health care form bill from the Senate HELP committee as costing $1 trillion over 10 years but only covering one-third of the uninsured, obstructionists pounced and proclaimed the public plan option dead.
But the CBO had not assessed the cost of the public plan option, nor a mandate on most employers to either provide insurance or contribute to the public plan.
Now they have. And as serious reform advocates long claimed, including those two key provisions drops the 10-year cost of reform by nearly $400 billion, while achieving near universal coverage.
"Will the self-proclaimed deficit hawks now embrace the public plan option since it would save money?" asks the Campaign for America's Future's Bill Scher. "Or will they come up with fresh excuses, such as fear-mongering that the public plan would decimate the private insurance industry?"
I'm guessing it'll be none from column A, a little from column B, with a healthy dollop of ignoring the real numbers altogether. After all, the Republicans have been using discredited numbers on cap-and-trade for months -- why abandon equally discredited numbers on health care? It's not like they give a damn whether what they say is true.
