GOP: Bigger isn't always better
Posted: Thursday, November 05, 2009 11:10 AM by Domenico MontanaroCongress , Republicans
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro Eric Cantor has a Web video -- with big, orchestral Americana string music -- touting how much smaller the GOP-proposed House health-reform bill is than the Democrats' almost-2,000-page bill:
So is smaller better? Discuss.
*** UPDATE *** Ezra Klein at the Washington Post , the left-leaning, but highly respected reporter who's been all over health policy, writes of the GOP bill:
According to CBO, the GOP's alternative will shave $68 billion off the deficit in the next 10 years. The Democrats, CBO says, will slice $104 billion off the deficit.
The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan. And amazingly, the Democratic bill has already been through three committees and a merger process. It's already been shown to interest groups and advocacy organizations and industry stakeholders. It's already made its compromises with reality. It's already been through the legislative sausage grinder. And yet it saves more money and covers more people than the blank-slate alternative proposed by John Boehner and the House Republicans. The Democrats, constrained by reality, produced a far better plan than Boehner, who was constrained solely by his political imagination and legislative skill.
