links for 2011-01-06

However, Orszag's article amounts to little more than wishful thinking. Using Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data, the chart below shows that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 have left the cost curve of federal healthcare spending virtually unchanged over the next 25 years.

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Ezra Klein, he of recent “the Constitution’s old, and stuff” fame, is one of the great and most persuasive cheerleaders for the belief that Republicans cannot repeal Obamacare and remain fiscally responsible since — as everybody knows! — Obamacare reduces the national debt by $100 billion over the next ten years. He makes his case here. Taking a slightly different but in many ways similar view in National Review Online, Avik Roy concedes that, purely as a matter of parliamentary process, Obamacare’s deficit-reduction features have to be taken into account. (Roy is no doubt correct in his analysis of the process questions.)

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