Joey S. trashing cost of healthcare bill. CBO says it will cut deficit by $1.3 trillion over 20 yrs

[flpoljunkie]

(Why do MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and his Republican ilk refuse to accept the CBO numbers on 'Obamacare?' Of course, we know the answer to that.)

CBO: Health-care reform bill cuts deficit by $1.3 trillion over 20 years, covers 95%

Washington has spent the past week or so waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to release its preliminary estimate of the Senate bill with the reconciliation fixes. Not only are those numbers important for the debate, but Democratic leaders refuse to release the actual text of their changes until CBO releases the specifics of its analysis.

According to a Democratic source, CBO has finished its work and will release the official preliminary score later today. But here are the basic numbers: The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130 billion during that period. In the second 10 years -- so, 2020 to 2029 -- it will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. The legislation will cover 32 million Americans, or 95 percent of the legal population.

To put this in context, that's more deficit reduction than either the House or Senate bill, and more coverage than the Senate bill.

How they got these numbers, and whether there are important qualifiers, will be easier to say once CBO releases its analysis. But the bottom line is that this is the exact sort of score that Democrats wanted, and is in fact considerably better than some had come to expect they would receive. Coverage is better than the Senate bill, which will reassure liberals, and deficit reduction is better than either bill, which will reassure conservatives.

By Ezra Klein
March 18, 2010; 9:35 AM ET

[Kdillard]

1. MSNBC is awful especially during the day. I stopped watching.

[JoePhilly]

4. Me too.

[valerief]

6. It's as unwatchable in the morning as it is on weekends. nt

[brooklynite]

2. Unrec'd

Your headline is misleading; unless you can have evidence of a consistent editorial pattern by the network.

[flpoljunkie]

3. Space problem. Have edited to change MSNBC to 'Joey S.'

Not a good reason to unrecommend, but you are certainly free to do so.

[OHdem10]

5. He has to trash the Bill. Republicans are running on platform

to Defund the HCR Bill if they cannot repeal. In other
words, they will not put money toward the Bill. The
House controls the Purse.

Knowing Obama would veto any repeal, they are running
on not funding it. Same result.

Being a Republican Joe has to keep the HCR Bill negatively
viewed.

[winstars]

7. He's a real ladykiller I'm told... nt

[Phx_Dem]

8. That's what I hear. n/t