eXcommunicate wrote:Actually, reconciliation is not really a "long standing process." It was first used solely for budget measures and solely budget measures that would REDUCE the deficit. After 1996 (a mere 14 years ago) the usage was expanded to any budgetary measure. Overhauling the health care system is not a budgetary measure.
According to the information we have from the CBO, the HC bill does reduce the deficit. You may not think it will. Republicans may not think it will. But the fact is the CBO, which is the official government body for determining these things, says the bill will reduce the deficit by $100B. The only reason Republicans are taking the reconciliation threat seriously is because they know it will work.
It's not a budget bill though. It's a health care bill. Many bills arguably will reduce the deficit, but that doesn't make them a budget bill.
I highly doubt it will reduce the deficit, and I can't see how any thinking person could (Republican or Democrat), since the CBO has to take into account the "assumptions" made by the legislators. In that sense it's junk in, junk out. But, whether or not it wil reduce the deficit is not the point and never was. It's a health insurance reform bill, not a budgetary measure.
But, I think your wrong about what the CBO has said about the new plan anyway. I believe on 2/22 the CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said that there was not enough detail in the proposal released by the White House to produce a cost analysis. He said, “[Yesterday] morning the Obama Administration released a description of its health care proposal, and CBO has already received several requests to provide a cost estimate for that proposal,” Elmendorf said. “We had not previously received the proposal, and we have just begun the process of reviewing it -- a process that will take some time, given the complexity of the issues involved. Although the proposal reflects many elements that were included in the health care bills passed by the House and the Senate last year, it modifies many of those elements and also includes new ones. Moreover, preparing a cost estimate requires very detailed specifications of numerous provisions, and the materials that were released [yesterday] morning do not provide sufficient detail on all of the provisions. Therefore, CBO cannot provide a cost estimate for the proposal without additional detail, and, even if such detail were provided, analyzing the proposal would be a time-consuming process that could not be completed this week.”
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=473
