What Health Care Reform Won't Do

As the health reform effort enters a tailspin, top administration officials continue to misrepresent the facts about the bill. For example, here's Obama adviser David Axelrod attempting to sell people on the idea that passing this bill is about something more than pushing a political agenda:

"It is not just getting the achievement under the belt. I think there are tangible benefits that people will accrue across this country as soon as this bill is signed. They will have more leverage, have more prescription drug coverage, Medicare is going to be extended by a decade…"

Not only is the idea that the bill can still be passed borderline delusional at this point, the talking point that it will extend Medicare has been debunked for weeks. Late last month, the CBO released a memo saying that it would be inaccurate to claim, as Democrats had been doing, that reform reduces the deficit and extends the solvency of Medicare; it can only do one or the other. Given that CBO-certified deficit neutrality has been the one standard that President Obama has insisted the bill meet throughout the year, there is effectively no chance that Democrats would choose to extend Medicare's solvency instead.