Quote Originally Posted by mjs View Post
Not only do they do it. I'm one of the people telling them when and how to do it. Like I've said, my advice is derived at least in part, often in full, by breaking down the data. I haven't seen them do this. I know it can be done and if they have a bill that does it, I can vote for it. My question was whether this bill does that and you seem too smart to be satisfied with the answer you passed on.
I guess my position is I'll accept the POTUS word on this. He's telling us essentially he has 950B of a 1T program covered. He's saying that those numbers the CBO will account for. He then says he has other long term savings in efficiencies that he feels is real but the CBO won't account for or in their jargon not scoreable.

So essentially he will not increase the debt with the gov't option, and his budget should reflect reducing the debt by half by the end of his first term.

I then read Paul Krugman's op-ed and was surprised he made this statement;
I’m not that worried about the issue of costs. Yes, the Congressional Budget Office’s preliminary cost estimates for Senate plans were higher than expected, and caused considerable consternation last week. But the fundamental fact is that we can afford universal health insurance — even those high estimates were less than the $1.8 trillion cost of the Bush tax cuts. Furthermore, Democratic leaders know that they have to pass a health care bill for the sake of their own survival. One way or another, the numbers will be brought in line.

I realized then that campaign finance reform is needed as much as health care reform. The issue to me is getting the lobblyist out of our elected officials pocket so they can start to do the will of the people. This seems to be more of a problem in the senate than in the house, and this seems to be the real problem in getting universal health care passed.