It's About Time

Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic posted a great piece today that helps re-focus the discussion over health care reform. His excerpt from the New York Times fact check of Obama's discussion with GOP members yesterday was particularly interesting:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the Republican bill would extend insurance coverage to about 3 million people by 2019, while leaving about 52 million uninsured (PDF). (Find the original Prescriptions blog post on the cost analysis of the House Republicans’ bill here.)

The House Democrats’ bill, by contrast, would extend health benefits to roughly 36 million people over the same time period, leaving about 18 million uninsured (PDF), according to the budget office. The cost of the insurance coverage provisions in the House Democrats’ bill was about $1.05 trillion over 10 years, according to the budget office, while the cost of coverage provisions in the Republicans’ bill would be just $61 billion.

Republican leaders had said all along that expanding health insurance coverage was not a main goal of their bill, because they viewed it as unaffordable. Instead, they had focused on narrowly tailoring their bill to reduce health care costs.

The debate over health insurance has really gotten away from people, and this piece deserves to be read.