Legal Commentary

What Will They Say When The Baucus Bill Is Gutted?

By Big Tent Democrat

The accomodationist wing of the "progressive blogosphere" has nice things to say about the Baucus proposal. Ezra Klein writes:

It'll be hard to say anything definitive on the Baucus proposal before we can see all the details. At the moment, Politico has the clearest rundown of what people think they know is in the plan. But in advance of the president's speech on Wednesday, we do seem to know Baucus's most crucial contribution to the debate: the number $900 billion. . . [T]hough it's less than one might hope, it's a lot more than many were beginning to fear. . . . The number I'd begun to hear was $700 billion.

My gawd. Did Ezra miss the stimulus bill sausage making? Set aside the basic flaw in the Baucus proposal - it has jettisoned the idea of competition from a public plan (the only part of reform that I think can work, I do not believe the US regulatory state can efficiently regulate the insurance industry). Even from Ezra's accomodationist perspective, he must know there is no way in hell the $900 billion number (btw, a large chunk of that comes from Medicare "savings") survives. Meanwhile Matt Yglesias incredibly compares the Baucus proposal to the Switzerland system. That defies belief.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 08, 2009 (boomark / email).