In a joint press conference this afternoon with Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader John Boehner said the Democrats’ health care reform bill is too expensive, and that it’s time for them to scrap it and start over.
Boehner cited a figure–$1.6 trillion–with origins in Associated Press articles that put the price of House health care legislation at $1.5 trillion. But those articles were based on the assertion of an anonymous congressional aide. Though it hasn’t scored a complete piece of legislation, the Congressional Budget Office–normally the authority on these matters–said in a preliminary report that the legislation would cost just over $1 trillion. And budget experts themselves are of a few minds over how various reform provisions should be evaluated, some note that certain measures like healthy lifestyle provisions, which will no doubt have some budgetary impact, but aren’t analyzed by the CBO.
We’ll have video for you shorlty. In recent days, the White House has characterized statements like Boehner’s as backdoor attempts to kill reform entirely.