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The big buzz in health care circles today is this Hill article featuring on-the-record quotes from Schumer, Rockefeller, and Baucus that appear to lower expectations for health reform. Obviously, I reject and denounce all such comments! But I'm not totally convinced they were made. Take Rockefeller's statement:
“We all know there is not enough money to do all this stuff,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a Finance Committee member and an Obama supporter, referring to the presidential candidates’ healthcare plans. “What they are doing is … laying out their ambitions.”That scans oddly for two reasons. The first is money. Obama's aides say the plan would cost between $50 billion and $65 billion a year. Assume they're lowballing, and the real number is $80 billion. That's some cash, to be sure but it's not a level of outlay that tends to make Senators balk. We're spending far more on Iraq, on tax cuts, and a host of other projects. The money could probably be found fairly easily -- and it's certainly not hard for Senators to say it could be found fairly easily. So that looks strange.The second oddity is "all this stuff." A health care bill contains a lot of stuff, to be sure, but it's generally referred to in the singular. It's a bill. It's big, and you can either do it or not do it. Moreover, the only proof we have that he was talking health care is that the reporter says so. It sounds to me like Rockefeller is saying something much broader and more mundane: That if you look at the domestic agendas of Clinton and Obama, there's not enough money nor political will to do all of it. You're not going to get health care and tax cuts and energy policy and housing reform and education and poverty and everything else you promised in the campaign. And even if you could muster the will, you can't find the funds. That leads to the question of priorities, but that's no surprise.
