Deciphering the health care numbers

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David Herzenhorn is congressional reporter for "The New York Times." On "The Takeaway, he says the debate is very much about the numbers at the moment.

"The Congressional Budget Office … said the House version of this bill is going to cost about $1.042 trillion dollars over ten years. And the really problematic number is $544 billion for members of Congress — that’s the amount of money that would be raised in an income surtax on high earners, and folks are very uncomfortable with that. In fact, the Senate is not interested in it at all.

"So what you have on the House side is a bunch of the members of Congress wondering if they’re going to be forced to vote in favor of that, and then not have it show up in the final bill, which will leave them needing political CPR at election time when opponents run ads saying ‘you voted for huge tax increases’," said Herzenhorn.

He says the health care bill has gotten weaker, "One of the challenges here is that … everybody likes the goal; nobody wants to make the tough decisions needed to get there. And so the President keeps calling in group after group — the American Association of Doctors, the hospitals, the nurses — trying to work out a deal. Now every one of these compromises serves to weaken the bill to some degree by pulling it in one direction or another.

"So at some point, folks gotta be told no. Taxpayers, they might not want the fiscally conservative "blue dogs" — the ones who want a balance budget — to be the ones the President finally gets tough with and says no, you can’t have what you’re asking for."

"The Takeaway" is a national morning news program, delivering the news and analysis you need to catch up, start your day, and prepare for what’s ahead. The show is a co-production of WNYC and PRI, in editorial collaboration with the BBC, The New York Times Radio, and WGBH.

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