Uncovered

As our esteemed Republicans sally forth in defense of the Republic's Healthcare system, they keep foundering on a seemingly insurmountable battlement: the Congressional Budget Office. This is the office that analyzes proposed Congressional legislation to determine what impacts it will have on various measures deemed relevant to the CBO. This analysis - termed a 'score' of the Bill - becomes somewhat of a sacred writ for the politicians, who will quote it as undeniable objective truth. When the CBO speaks, apparently, the science is settled, and there shall be no deniers allowed into the sacred spaces of Congress.

With regard to Healthcare, the CBO says many things, but the most important score is that of the number of citizens who will  lose their health insurance coverage should the Republicans make any changes to Obamacare. This number hovers around 20 million, about 6% of the population.

So for want of the 6%, the politicians feel the need to restructure the Healthcare of the 94%. As absurd as that is, the 6% is the fulcrum around which all Republican proposals circle. But there is a problem, and the problem is not the 6% per se, it is the CBO.

Avik Roy of NRO gives us the skinny, based on some new information recently disclosed by a(nother) Washington leaker. Apparently, the super majority of those losing insurance are … wait for  it … due to the proposed repeal of the Obamacare mandate to purchase insurance. That's right; the uninsured results, not from losing any particular coverage, but from  the CBO's estimate of how many citizens will choose to forego insurance when they are no longer required to purchase it.

Thus, if every jot and tittle of Obamacare were left in place, but the insurance mandate was repealed, the CBO would score the result as 20 million 'losing' coverage.

But that's not losing coverage; that's citizens exercising their right to pursue their own happiness. And therein lies in microcosm the warp and woof of our public discourse on issues major and minor: instead of arguing the substance of the policy, our betters substitute loaded rhetoric for honest description - e.g.  'losing coverage' for 'refusing coverage.'

And here's a question: how much are we paying these experts at the CBO? We should fire the economists and replace them with entry-level PR flacks. At least then we would all be honest about our dishonesty.