1)      The Democrats do not have answers to Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) objections. Stephen Spruiell writes:

 

The Democrats are touting an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office that their health-care bill would reduce the deficit by around $130 billion over the next ten years. What Ryan pointed out — and what no Democrat even attempted to counter — is that this is because the legislation front-loads tax hikes and Medicare cuts and defers costs, forcing the CBO to score ten years of offsets with only six years of spending. Looked at on a level playing field, the true ten-year cost of the bill is $2.3 trillion rather than $950 billion, Ryan said.

 

Then he brought up another gimmick: The bill is full of double-counting. “Savings” are counted as offsets for new health-care spending and at the same time set aside to pay for future entitlements. For instance, the Democrats claim $52 billion in offsets as a result of increasing Social Security payroll-tax revenues. But these dollars are already claimed for future Social Security beneficiaries. They can’t pay for both. The Democrats take another $72 billion in premiums intended to fund a new long-term-care program and count them as offsets for other spending. Ryan pointed out that Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad has called this “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.”

Perhaps most important, Ryan confronted the Democrats with the issue of the “Doc Fix” — a separate bill that would have added $371 billion to the Democrats’ legislation if it hadn’t been stripped out. The Doc Fix would have prevented Medicare reimbursements to doctors from plummeting by 21 percent, a drop that Congress put into the bill to improve its CBO score but never planned to allow, most political observers agree.

 

How did President Obama respond to Ryan? By stating, “We have some strong disagreements on the numbers, but I don’t want to get too bogged down.” Did any Democrat attempt to discredit Ryan’s claims? Yes. Spruiell notes:

 

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D., Calif.) was the only Democrat who really attempted to address Ryan’s critique. First, he implied that Ryan was trying to question the integrity of the CBO. But Ryan’s critique calls into question the Democrats’ integrity, not the CBO’s, by pointing out that the CBO’s analysts must by law score what is set in front of them, and that what the Democrats have set in front of them is full of gimmicks designed to hide the cost of the bill.

Second, Becerra attempted to address the argument that by delaying certain spending provisions, the Democrats have hidden the bill’s true cost. He pointed out that the CBO has estimated that the Democrats’ bill would reduce the deficit by 0.5 percent of GDP in the second ten years, when all the spending would be included. But he failed to mention that the CBO’s estimate included the following caveat: “A detailed year-by-year projection for years beyond 2019 . . . would not be meaningful because the uncertainties involved are simply too great.”

 

Neither Obama nor Becerra — nor any other Democrat — addressed the issue of double-counting.

           

            Here is the full clip of Ryan’s remarks:

           

     

2)      The time allotted favored the Democrats by a 2:1 margin.   A bipartisan summit should at least attempt to divide the time evenly, right? Here’s how the opening remarks scored with time allotments:

DEMOCRATS’ OPENING REMARKS                         
President Obama     14 mins, 36 seconds                        
Speaker Pelosi          7 mins, 57 seconds
Leader Reid              8 mins, 13 seconds
Total                       30 mins, 46 seconds

REPUBLICAN OPENING REMARKS
Senator Alexander   13 mins, 10 seconds

 

It didn’t get any better after that. At the end of the day, President Obama spoke for 119 minutes, Congressional Democrats spoke for 114 minute and the Congressional Republicans racked up a whopping 110 minutes. 

 

That’s all I really have. Without having seen the political theatrics, it’s hard to offer too much more of an analysis. Did any C21 reader view the proceedings (without falling asleep)? If so, leave your observations and remarks below.