CBO says Early Estimates show Public Option will sav Billions in Ten Years

From the New Republic:

A lot of conservative Democrats, not to mention Republicans, express two big concerns about health reform. They're worried that reform will cost too much. And they don't want a government-run insurance plan.

It's about to get a lot harder to make those two arguments simultaneously.

According to a pair of Capitol Hill sources, preliminary estimates from the Congressional Budget Office suggest that a strong public option--the kind that the House of Representatives is putting in its reform bill--should net somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 billion in savings over ten years.

The sources cautioned that these were only the preliminary estimates, based on previous discussions--that CBO had not yet issued final scoring on language in the actual bill. But the sources felt the final estimate would likely be close.

And TPMDC adds:

Keep in mind, though, that the public option creates savings by driving down prices, and it can't do that nearly as effectively if it's prevented from setting below-market pay rates. But that's exactly what conservative Democrats are trying to do. At the same time, those Democrats are demanding that health care legislation do a better job of lowering health care costs. And that's just one of the contradictions inherent to the position of those attempting to scale back reform efforts.

Keep on those Blue Dogs. Call them, email them, write them, sign petitions, hold vigils or protests outside their local office. Whatever it takes, because to pass this you have to do whatever it takes!

Is the Progressive Block Strategy Working?

I've been a bit skeptical only because I've never had spelled out in way that I could process internally and then defend but that all changed today. This new post on FDL finally gave me the backfill I needed to bring it all together when Jane explained the reasoning for the 3 criteria they are pushing progressives in congress to pledge to:

That definition was drawn up to explicitly to get people to commit to vote against the Conrad plan. Available day one (no triggers), nationwide (no state balkanization), answerable to Congress and the voters (as opposed to answerable to states that lack bargaining power at the federal level).

There's a lot more thought given to this strategy than I was giving credit. You'll learn from reading the post how this works to get progressives commit to a strong plan that can only get stronger and how it catapults fiery rhetoric (think Harry Reid) that is frittered away in procedural mumbo-jumbo.

This is an action to get behind

Rahm Backs down

Emanuel assures House Democrats that he won’t compromise on public plan.

After initially indicating his support for a public plan “trigger,” White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel reassured House Democrats tonight that he strongly backs a public plan. Progressive Caucus Co-Chairwoman Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) said she told Emanuel that support for a “trigger” would cause health reform to lose Democratic votes:

“We have compromised enough, and we are not going to compromise on any kind of trigger game,” Woolsey said she told Emanuel. “People clapped all over the place. We mean it, and not just progressives.”

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said Emanuel reassured him that he “doesn’t stand by that trigger.”

UPDATERep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), co-chairman of the 77-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, fired off a letter to President Obama today, stating: “I want to be crystal clear that any such trigger for a strong public plan option is a non-starter with a majority of the Members of the Progressive Caucus.”

UPDATEMoveOn has been rallying its members to call the White House to express their views.