Whip Count (No. 20 in a Series) Betsy Markey Switches from No to Yes

The Democratic caucus continues its impersonation of the Chicken Ranch.

It’s getting fairly easy to see what’s going to happen.
The Democrats will pass this bill and continue with their agenda. Once the partisan bickering, lies and the foolish talk about ‘death panels’ and ‘kill granny’ and all the other Republican slurs are over, Americans will come on side and support the endeavour.
As the economy continues to improve and the remainder of the ARRA funds kick in, Americans will realize how decent it is to have the Democrats in office, rather than what they remember from the Republicans.
Looks like November is going to be an excellent contest with the Democrats coming out ahead.

“Taking a look” is absolutely pathetic. They need to CRITICALLY ANALYZE every word, sentence and paragraph, paying attention to what is IN the bill, what is NOT in the bill
_______________________________________
The two bills that passed the House and the Senate with MAJORITY votes – have been on line for months and have been well studied.
The reconciliation portion is small, easily digestible and comprised mostly of items already covered in the two bills.

Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) said, “if you don’t tie our hands, we will keep stealing.”

ObamaCare breaks another campaign promise.
Perhaps Obama’s biggest promise.
“I will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250K”.
Will the MSM bother to report it?
And if by some miracle the MSM does their job, would it matter?
Lies, sleazy deals and bribes, a lack of principles–don’t seem to matter to a big number of voters.

If OCare passes BHO’s head will get even bigger, if that’s possible.
He will swagger like Barney Fife, and think he is invincible.
Ocare will convince Obama that he can get away with anything. The more he tries to force his radical agenda onto America the more Independents/Moderate Dems he will chase away.
OCare will be the end of Pelosi, Reid, Obama.
They are addicted to power.
They couldn’t care less about the people.

The new Gallup Poll also finds that barely 16% of Americans approve of Congress job while 80% (as in eight out of every ten Americans) now disapprove of the work being done by both bodies and their Democratic leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

This is simply incomprehensible. The Democrat Congress is actually working against the people of the United States.
This is a dangerous time. Expect Obama to bypass Congress altogether soon and deem laws into existence himself.
The Republic is at risk for its very existence.

And on the on-deck circle: Immigration Reform. …
Posted by: tjp612 |
Don’t forget the financial reform bill that Wall Street puppet Chris Dodd came out with this week. The banking lobbyists have been working really hard to write this bill. I’m sure it will be just peachy with all our progressive friends.

It’s so funny reading these post,everyone wants to say how bad this is but when Bush tried to pass certain HC in 2001 (349 billion) and 2003 (billion 325) and ran up the deficit by 1.3 trillion dollars the GOP voted yes. All of you now have a problem because the President is trying to fix this broken HC system, well tell that to the people without insurance.

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | Mar 18, 2010 9:07:23 PM
Don’t forget Obama’s regime change efforts in Israel!

Posted by: Ton | Mar 18, 2010 9:17:43 PM
Some of us hated the way Bush spent. He spent like…like….like….a Democrat.
Posted by: drjohn | Mar 18, 2010 9:39:04 PM
____________________________________
Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt. Seems to me he was a Republican as well.

Dem Congressman: ‘If You Don’t Tie Our Hands, We Will Keep Stealing’…
Tyrants…………
Obama VS America

Dem Congressman: ‘If You Don’t Tie Our Hands, We Will Keep Stealing’…
Tyrants…………
Posted by: another crisis-another photo op | Mar 18, 2010 10:05:50 PM
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The paranoid, extremist right wing frets and wrings their hands.
The Republicans believe only they have the divine right to rule America. Anyone else will destroy it!
Hogwash.

Posted by: Flash Override | Mar 18, 2010 9:49:37 PM
“That just about covers the cost of the unfunded cut in rich people’s taxes passed by the fiscally irresponsible Republicans.”
Does Obamacare cover medication for class envy?

Massachusetts Treasurer: Dems healthcare plan will ‘bankrupt the country in four years’…
Obama VS America

Posted by: Flash Override | Mar 18, 2010 9:49:37 PM
“That just about covers the cost of the unfunded cut in rich people’s taxes passed by the fiscally irresponsible Republicans.”
________________________________________
Bush plunged the country into deficit and then huge debt by cutting rich people’s taxes – and left the country in an extremely vulnerable position for the economic collapse on his watch.
We’ll be years digging out from underneath that mess.

The paranoid, extremist right wing frets and wrings their hands.
The Republicans believe only they have the divine right to rule America. Anyone else will destroy it!
Hogwash.

Does Obamacare cover medication for class envy?
Posted by: tjp612 | Mar 18, 2010 10:09:31 PM
Thanks for the honesty there tjp, most wingers wouldn’t admit that this wasn’t out-and-out class warfare.
I’d much rather deal with an honest class bias against working people, like tjp, than with the so-called ‘deficit hawks’ who are anything but.

Posted by: tierra | Mar 18, 2010 10:13:30 PM
Do you have macros programmed for your responses? It’s very efficient and well worth the time.

So the health insurance reform bill is going to cut the deficit by over 1.3 trillion dollars, according to the CBO.
Posted by: Flash Override |
Tax 10 years and spend for 6 and you can save money. But who is stupid enough to fall for that?

===Tax 10 years and spend for 6 and you can save money. But who is stupid enough to fall for that?===
Markey, D-CO. At least she admits to being that stupid, since that is why she claims she is switching her vote to yes.

“So the health insurance reform bill is going to cut the deficit by over 1.3 trillion dollars, according to the CBO.”
This is projected (if you believe it) over 10 years.
This is about 8 months of deficit spending under Obama and the Thugocrats.
Yeah, this is TOTALLY worth turning the U.S. healthcare system upside-down and polarizing the country. I see the logic.

Posted by: tierra | Mar 18, 2010 10:36:11 PM
Work on the macros – Much more efficient.

“The Republican right wing polarizes themselves.”
But yet EVERY Republican in both Houses is against this legislation while Pelosi and Obama are having to arm twist members of their own party (fellow Democrats).
Hmmm….Me thinks ye art a blind ideologue…

“He (the President) fully understands where I stand on abortion, and he doesn’t want me to vote against my conscience because he, like me, believes that if we were to vote against our conscience, our moral values, there is really nothing left for us to defend,” Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, (R-La.) said. “I’m glad that the president is very understanding. He really shows his own moral character.”
“He did not whip me on the vote,” Cao said after meeting with Obama in the Oval Office for about 10 minutes Wednesday.

But yet EVERY Republican in both Houses is against this legislation
_________________________________
This is no surprise. The Republican tactic to try to get elected is to oppose EVERYTHING the Democrats do and to try to demonize and smear the Democrats and the President.

The Republican tactic to try to get elected is to oppose EVERYTHING the Democrats do and to try to demonize and smear the Democrats and the President.
Posted by: tierra |
More total nonsense from the public scold.

Posted by: tierra | Mar 18, 2010 11:06:13 PM
Didn’t think you could/would.

Much of the costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been funded through regular appropriations bills, but through emergency supplemental appropriations bills. As such, most of these expenses were not included in the budget deficit calculation prior to FY2010.”
Two unpaid for wars . . .
Posted by: tierra |
Are “emergency supplemental appropriations” mandatory, discretionary or a third kind of spending you just discovered?
Are the wars being paid for now, in your world?
Was the Porkulus bill paid for?

“Bush is unique among U.S. presidents in failing to raise a nickel in extra taxes to pay for the cost of (the Iraq) war.”

Friends, we are through the looking glass. It is now “fiscally irresponsible” to want to pay for a war with a tax. These democrats just don’t understand: the tooth fairy pays for wars.
Posted by: tierra |
Is THAT why the Dems haven’t done it in the three plus years they have controlled congress?

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | Mar 18, 2010 11:59:18 PM
Try to improve your reading skills . ..
October 7, 2007
Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, was asked about a proposal by some Congressional Democrats to levy a surtax to pay for the Iraq war, and she responded, “We’ve always known that Democrats seem to revert to type, and they are willing to raise taxes on just about anything.”
Yes, those silly Democrats. They’ll raise taxes for anything, even — get this — to pay for a war!
And if we did raise taxes to pay for our war to bring a measure of democracy to the Arab world, “does anyone seriously believe that the Democrats are going to end these new taxes that they’re asking the American people to pay at a time when it’s not necessary to pay them?” added Ms. Perino. “I just think it’s completely fiscally irresponsible.”
Friends, we are through the looking glass. It is now “fiscally irresponsible” to want to pay for a war with a tax. These democrats just don’t understand: the tooth fairy pays for wars.

From the Washington Examiner: When Obama was running for the U.S. Senate a video in October 2003 showed him saying, “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program. We may not get there immediately,” noting the Democrats must “take back” the White House and both houses of Congress — a condition fulfilled last Jan. 20.
Campaigning for president in May 2007, Obama said, “But I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately.” That seems to imply that his goal remains the same as it was in 2003. “There’s going to be potentially some transition process — I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out, or 20 years out, where we’ve got a much more portable system.”

Posted by: EPU | Mar 19, 2010 12:12:40 AM
There is no move to monopolize the health care system – and there is none in any of the bills.
As is obvious from these bills, whatever certain individuals might desire, what is arrived at requires a lot of compromise.

Bush is GONE. You have to get over it someday.
_________________________________
Bush may be gone, but the debt from his 2 unpaid for wars is not. Neither is the debt from his unpaid for seniors drug plan, nor his unpaid for tax cuts for the rich.
And MOST certainly, the results of the economic collapse on Bush’s shift – after 6 years of Republican policies – the results of that mess will be with us for years.
I understand why you want to forget, why you want to sweep it all under the rug – but it’s important to remember and understand what a mess that administration put in motion . . .

Someday the Democrats will get tired of cleaning up Republican messes.
Posted by: Flash Override |
When was the last time the Democrats cleaned up a mess? I think it’s when they made Waxman’s Cap-n-Tax disappear but nobody thinks that was a Republican mistake.

The Republicans are so shocked to see a program actually costed out and paid for (health care reform) it’s like an alien creature to them – and they attack.
Posted by: tierra
—
What is the total estimated price tag on this “reform”? Not the cheerleader version. Nowhere is this bill “costed out”. No none knows. Even if you could find an actual, honest, accounting of this disaster -which you can’t do- would get closer to reality by tripling that figure.
I think the in-house number they have in front of them is a bare minimum of 1.5 trillion. Probably a lot higher than that.

tierra haven’t you been paying attention? You obviously don’t understand how politics works. The public option is going to happen with these people and this is their foot in the door. The public option according to Obama and Barney Frank is the best way to achieve a single payer system where the government owns the entire monopoly on health care. Stop being so naive about your precious Democrat gods.

Hopefully we can control the insurance industry.. better than we controlled the banking industry.

it appears much of the Tea Party crowd is simply clueless about the issues they claim to care the most about, wildly exaggerating federal tax rates, how much a median family pays in taxes, and what’s changed since President Obama took office. ”
Posted by: progressive mama |
Those rubes. They don’t even know that government is here to help them.
Speaking of rubes, POTUS and the Wicked Witch of the House both claimed yesterday that this is the biggest deficit reduction bill in ~ 20 years. That’s right. Universal health care AND once-in-a-generation deficit reduction all in one bill!!! There’s also a rumor that every little girl in America will get a pony too.

Who did Bush think would pay for all of this? Macdonald’s workers?
Posted by: tierra |
Exactly. That’s why it was so important that the Democrats restored pay as you go when they took control of the purse in Jan 2007…..
Oh wait.

Let me see – who did institute pay as you go recently . .. uhm, let me see. Who could that possibly have been. Oh yeah – the Democrats!
Posted by: tierra |
No honey. The war was not being “paid for” under W and it’s not being paid for now. Why don’t you ask Rep Obey about paying for wars?

Keep it on an adult level America…VOTE YOUR OBJECTIONS IN 2010/2012….NEVER FORGET WHAT HAS TRANSPIRED IN THIS COUNTRY FOR THE PAST 12 MONTHS….SO FAR, WE STILL HAVE OUR VOTE….

“The war was not being “paid for” under W and it’s not being paid for now.”
Yet you scream about any taxes to actually pay for it.
Got any bogus survey’s to parrot today?
Don’t feel too bad though apparently Marc Rubio is a gullible as you are.
Actually that makes me feel bad, since you’re just some right winger blogging and he is the frontrunner for the US Senate in FL.

And similarly, never forget what happened to the country during the previous 8 years of Republican presidency . . .
Posted by: tierra |
And similarly, never forget what happened to the country during the 4 years of Carter’s presidency . . .

And similarly, never forget what happened to the country during the 4 years of Carter’s presidency . . .
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | Mar 19, 2010 2:47:31 PM
It always makes me laugh when people skip Clinton and go back to Carter. LOL. Hmmm… why would that be???
Francis Fukuyama: “It is hard to imagine a more disastrous presidency than that of George W. Bush. It was bad enough that he launched an unnecessary war and undermined the standing of the United States throughout the world in his first term. But in the waning days of his administration, he is presiding over a collapse of the American financial system and broader economy that will have consequences for years to come. As a general rule, democracies don’t work well if voters do not hold political parties accountable for failure.” (the American Conservative; see also The Fall of America Inc, Newsweek)

Thus the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s produced a big deficit; the Clinton tax increases of the 1990s produced a surplus; and the Bush tax cuts of the early 21st century produced an even larger deficit. The fact that the American economy grew just as fast in the Clinton years as in the Reagan ones somehow didn’t shake the conservative faith in tax cuts as the surefire key to growth.”
Posted by: progressive mama |
Could you possibly find a more superficial analysis than this? Maybe Time will do a foollowup.

Yet you scream about any taxes to actually pay for it.
Posted by: Ryan C |
Another statement you can’t back up.
On the other hand, you VOTED against taxes last year. You loves you some gov’t as long as someone else is paying for it.

Do you know who Francis Fukuyama is? LOL, LOL, LOL.
Speaking of superficial….
Posted by: progressive mama |
From this wikipedia blurb, sounds like he is la tierra’s mentor….
Fukuyama endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 US presidential election. He states:
“I’m voting for Barack Obama this November for a very simple reason. It is hard to imagine a more disastrous presidency than that of George W. Bush. It was bad enough that he launched an unnecessary war and undermined the standing of the United States throughout the world in his first term. But in the waning days of his administration, he is presiding over a collapse of the American financial system and broader economy that will have consequences for years to come. As a general rule, democracies don’t work well if voters do not hold political parties accountable for failure. While John McCain is trying desperately to pretend that he never had anything to do with the Republican Party, I think it would be a travesty to reward the Republicans for failure on such a grand scale.”

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | Mar 19, 2010 3:44:27 PM
And before that?
LOL, LOL, LOL.
I know, I know… Bartlett and Fukuyama criticized idealogues for becoming rigid and ruining the economy and country doesn’t phase any of you. Head in the sands, y’all!

correction, I know, I know… the notion of Bartlett and Fukuyama, former Reaganites, criticizING idealogues for becoming rigid and ruining the economy and country doesn’t phase any of you. Never mind their critiques. Head in the sands, y’all!

The Republicans are so shocked to see a program actually costed out and paid for (health care reform) it’s like an alien creature to them – and they attack.
Posted by: tierra
—
I’m not attacking. I just want to see where this disaster is “costed out” and who it’s “costed out” to. Anyone believing this will be paid for by seizing a fraction of insurance industry profits and mixing them with phantom savings is a fool. The ONLY thing that could possibly pay for this ignorance/disaster is pay-go. Pay-go in the form of every man and woman in this country being forced into a new withholding tax equal to SS.

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | Mar 19, 2010 5:04:32 PM
What I think is that you were trying to make an analogy that doesn’t work and now you’re making excuses.
As for not being able to keep track of changing positions, I’d say you have selective memory there. Very. Selective. LOL.
And its likely willful.

“This is a bigger bailout for the insurance industry than AIG,” former Democratic National Committee chairman and medical doctor Howard Dean told “Good Morning America’s” George Stephanopoulos today. “A very small number of people are going to get any insurance at all, until 2014, if the bill works.
“This is an insurance company’s dream, this bill,” Dean continued. “This is the Washington scramble, and I think it’s ill-advised.”
Dean sent shockwaves when he said Tuesday in an interview with Vermont Public Radio that the removal of the Medicare buy-in means Democrats should just kill the health care bill and start over.
“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” Dean said. “Honestly, the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”

Glenn Greenwald:
“For almost a full year, scores of progressive House members vowed — publicly and unequivocally — that they would never support a health care bill without a robust public option. They collectively accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars based on this pledge. Up until a few weeks ago, many progressive opinion leaders — such as Moulitsas, Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann and many others — were insisting that the Senate bill was worse than the status quo and should be defeated. But now? All of those progressives House members are doing exactly what they swore they would never do — vote for a health care bill with no public option — and virtually every progressive opinion leader is not only now supportive of the bill, but vehemently so.”

Meanwhile, people can check the transcript of Howard Dean on Rachel Maddow last night.
Posted by: progressive mama |
He was against it before he was for it. It’s a Deemocrat thing.

It’s a Deemocrat thing.
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | Mar 19, 2010 10:00:10 PM
If you think that, you are naive, don’t understand negotiation or politics and are wholly ignoring that Republicans were for both deem and pass and reconciliation and very similar health care reform legislation before they were against it. (I’d also take a gander at the amazing flip flops McCain has been doing. lol)
I think Glenn Greenwald gets it right. As did Norm Orenstein on deem and pass.
I will acknowledge that you were right when you said you’re out of the loop and don’t keep track. That is obviously true if you think its a Democrat thing and not a Republican one.
but kudos to you as you have managed to distract from my point on Bartlett and Fukuyama despite the fact that your analogy to Dean didn’t work. Bartlett and Fukuyama still think Bush’s presidency was a disaster and Republicans learned the wrong lessons from Reagan– they weren’t negotiating on policy for a chronic issue. They’re pointing out the flawed thinking of the right overall.
I urge folks to read Bartlett’s most recent book and well as Fukuyama’s essays since 2007-2008.

I urge folks to read Bartlett’s most recent book and well as Fukuyama’s essays since 2007-2008.
Posted by: progressive mama
—
If you’ll hone in on the contents of THIS bill, I’ll think about it.

Ezra Klein at WaPo makes a couple of key points regarding CBO skeptism and Irwin’s piece:
“First, be very careful with any criticism of CBO that seems to be merited by a particular score rather than a particular methodological difficulty. To put that slightly differently, does anyone think that conservatives would be squawking if CBO had disappointed Democrats by saying the bill would save less money than either the House or Senate incarnations? If not, then keep in mind that this is a political, not technical, dispute. ”
(and yes, I know, I have a few faves on various topics and many of those on the other side balk every time I mention them. the term “progressive” is in my screen name for a reason. If you don’t want to understand my world view, then don’t read my posts. Its pretty simple. Discrediting the writers and wonks I like for no reason other than they’re progressive makes very little sense– more in keeping with debate would be arguing the substance in relation to the real world or pointing out where facts don’t match up )

Ezra Klein continues:
“Third, some argue that the problem with CBO’s estimates is that they can’t control for Congress. The actual evidence shows that Congress is much better at sticking to tough cost controls than people give them credit for. But beyond that, if Congress can’t do hard things, then everyone is screwed. Conservatives, who strongly believe in entitlement reform, are perhaps in the worst shape as that’s the hardest thing to do. Moreover, the health-care bill has the Medicare Commission, which explicitly makes it easier to do hard things because it takes some of the power away from Congress and gives it to independent experts.”

I want to know what this bill demands of individuals. In dollars and cents. Because you and I both know that number will be doubled before it’s time for me to buy my next vehicle. That’s not too much to ask.
No emotions. No manufactured tears. No self-serving analogies.
Posted by: smartlillena | Mar 20, 2010 9:49:34 AM
The problem with the question that you repeat over and over is that we’d all like to know what our health care will cost– specificially– with this bill, without it — and nobody can know that– for one thing, one size doesn’t fit all. When your premiums are calculated underwriters look at your age, weight, medical history. Mine is different than yours. Your cost is dependent on where you live, whether you smok, who you work for, how large the risk pool is, which providers you use once you hit limits. It could cost more to go to Hospital A versus Hospital B. Without reform, your insurance contract could be canceled if you contract AIDs or are diagnosed with cancer or are in a near-fatal car accident and have chronic injuries.
Projections show premiums doubling every seven years under the status quo– but insurers make money in a couple of ways, and one way is tied to the stock market.
you’re looking for certaintly. You’re averse to risk. That’s very Republican. Republicans tend to be highly risk averse. In the real world, uncertainty is everywhere.
you can read the bill and analyses, including the CBO score. You can try to figure out what improvements will be made down the road. you can look at what you pay now and look at medical inflation trends with and without the reform bill and calculate what you’ll pay. But certainly you know that not everyone pays the same amount for their health care.
The question is posturing– or simple-minded– or misguided.

Posted by: smartlillena | Mar 20, 2010 10:09:58 AM
Ezra Klein (WaPo) continues:
“Fourth, some conservatives are arguing that Democrats “gamed” the CBO in order to get the score they wanted. That’s only true insofar as you think going to office hours and working with the teacher is the same as cheating on a test. Both parties go back-and-forth with CBO to try and get their legislation down to a price tag they’re comfortable with. But it’s not some sort of trick. In this case, Democrats changed their legislation so the subsidies grew more slowly over time and the excise tax would grow faster. In other words, CBO said that they’d need to do hard things their constituents wouldn’t like if they wanted to cut the deficit more, and they did them. That’s not gaming, it’s governing…”

p.s. Rather than following Drudge links and posting them as key points, I suggest reading Ezra’s interviews with Paul Ryan, specifically where they address the doc fix (see Paul Ryan and the true cost of health care reform, and The true cost of the health-care bill, cont’d: An interview with Rep. Paul Ryan)
This part in particular, as well as a few lines above and below:
EK: What confused me about your point on that is that yes, Democrats are proposing new savings in Medicare to fund their bill. But Medicare also has lots of existing debts and obligations. You wouldn’t say that Medicare’s expected deficit 20 years from now is part of the bill. I agree that the SGR fix was in the House bill originally, because they figured that as long as they were doing a big health-care package, we should get this done, too. But people often attach a lot of priorities to one big legislative initiative. That doesn’t mean they’re the same thing. Then your party began hammering them, and you can argue it was cynical that they took it out, but they took it out because Republicans were cynically hammering them having it in there.
PR: You and I both know why they took it out. It made the numbers look bad.
EK: Absolutely. But they had to do the fix because Republicans passed this bill in 1997.
PR: But Bill Clinton signed the damn thing into law, and the American Medical Association asked us to do this.
EK: We agree. Everyone’s hands are dirty on this.

p.s. Rather than following Drudge links and posting them as key points, I suggest reading Ezra’s interviews
Posted by: progressive mama
—
I’ll not get into a source war. Why should I, anyway? Your source just made the same point: they separated it to get it out of there, trying to make themselves look better in an effort to build support using a damn lie.

My main takeaway is…
Posted by: progressive mama
—
That’s why your words can’t be taken at face value. Most readers understand why that is, I certainly do. I’ve consistently asked about cost. The CBO only just released it’s take on that (cost). Before then everything being said (or not) about cost was speculation. Or lies. Or damn lies. What was I supposed to say?
I read it 3 different places. Drudge was one. Rather than link to a lib blogger (Klein), his link was to an AP story. He does that a lot. Do you have a problem with the Associated Press?
Speaking of your own rhetoric, you never answered me:
When did the CBO tell them they had to do ‘hard things’? I’d no idea they had any involvement in writing legislation.

Since the blog post here was about Betsy Markey– and she was singled out by the president yesterday for changing her vote– I’ll point out that she’s a former small business owner and there is an interesting post about her at the NYT’s You’re the boss blog:
“The Fort Collins Coloradoan reported that Ms. Markey was swayed by the Congressional Budget Office’s projection of lower government spending for the modified Senate bill. “Particularly in the out years there’s significantly more deficit reduction and I have to say this is going to be the largest deficit-reduction bill that I will ever vote for,” she said. But reducing the government’s deficit is not the same as reforming health care delivery to make it more affordable and sustainable, and the C.B.O.’s 10-year estimate does not try to calculate savings from innovations like wellness programs or Medicare payment pilot projects.
But Ms. Markey also said, in the words of The Coloradoan, that “the new bill is better for small businesses because it allows them to pool together for lower rates, and exempts businesses with less than 50 employees from the mandate that employers provide coverage.”

Is there something wrong with my using the Associated Press story vs Ezra Klien?
————
Its your thing, do what you wanna do. I can’t pretend to remotely understand the diehard Republican mindset. For me, personally, in this particular instance, I’d say it depends if you like being rather late to the party and how well-informed you like be– and if you like interview transcripts where you get two points of view or prefer a tip off from a partisan that leads you to a journalists’ given view, when that journalist may or may not be a CBO wonk. Besides that, you missed the point in a pretty huge way, not that you seem to care– the dates.
Bottom line: if you’d taken the time to read the interview you would have seen that both sides get explained fairly well in broad strokes. Its not dumbed down into a cut and dried sound bite. And you would have had longer to complain about doc fix– you wouldn’t be waiting for Drudge to catch wind of the issues, while promoting a dummy hoax memo. LOL.
And actually, the words you quoted were Ezra Klein’s and I posted them, but you’re right they’re not the same as yours, which is why they’re accurate whereas yours are not.
Skewed interpretation, yours.
Anyway, that’s it. Good luck. I’m going to celebrate the historic achievement with like-minded (and well-informed) friends