The totals below, I am told by the Heritage Foundation, do NOT include the $250 billion extra spending on Medicare to buy off the American Medical Association for their support of the U.S. House bill.

The Democratic House Leadership has completely lost touch with fiscal reality.

The following is a cut and paste of a media statement by the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Gregg (R-NH):

Senator Gregg: Updated CBO Estimate of House Bill Pulls Back the Curtain on Majority’s Intent to Grow Government by $3 Trillion

Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee today commented on the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) more detailed cost estimate of the manager’s amendment to the House health reform bill.

Senator Gregg stated, “The CBO estimate released last night finally sheds light on the smoke and mirrors game the majority has been playing with the cost of their health care reform proposal. Over the first 10 years, this legislation builds in gross new spending of $1.7 trillion – and most of the new spending doesn’t even start until 2014. Once that spending is fully phased in, the House Democratic bill rings up at more than $3 trillion over ten years.

“Additionally, this bill cuts critical Medicare and Medicaid funding by $628 billion, accounts for nearly $1.2 trillion in tax and fee increases and will explode the scope of government by putting the nation’s health care system in the hands of Washington bureaucrats. The $3 trillion price tag defies common sense – we simply cannot add all this new spending to the government rolls and claim to control the deficit.

“If we continue to pile more and more debt on the next generation, they will never be able to get out from under it. The health care system needs reform, but this massive expansion of government, financed by our children and grandchildren, is the wrong way to proceed.”

Politico (again) breaks a major story this morning with its outing of the Dem secret plan that Brian Darling of the Heritage Foundation has been warning of for more than ten days:

a former House and Senate leadership aide sent an email sketching out another route to passage. Instead of introducing a Senate bill, Majority Leader Reid could insert the merged health care reform language into a revenue raising House bill already languishing in conference committee. The Senate would pass it and send it to the House whereupon passage, it would go straight to the president’s desk – completely bypassing conference. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

By cutting out conference, this single-bullet scenario eliminates weeks of expected wrangling and would make it possible to pass a bill by the Thanksgiving target so many Democrats are aiming for. Many insiders agree that a conference committee would make that goal next to impossible.

The Democrats are raping the Congressional process to pass ObamaCare:

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The unsatisfied quenching of the Dem thirst for health care reform continued as the Senate Finance Committee received their vapor score for their vapor bill which had the net effect of discrediting the Congressional Budget Office. U.S. Rep. Shadegg renamed CBO the Cooked Books Office with a stinging post (as in, that’s gotta hurt):

Could you make your family budget look good in a ten-year analysis if you counted ten years of income but only seven of expenditures? That’s what the Congressional Budget Office did in their report on Senator Max Baucus’s health care bill.

Their subpar accounting includes revenue from tax increases and cuts to Medicare and Medicare Advantage starting in 2010. However, the bulk of expenditures begin in 2013, when many of the bill’s programs go into effect. It sounds like the CBO has started taking accounting tips from old Enron manuals. How can Democrats be taken seriously if they use ten years of revenue to pay for seven years of expenditures?

Heritage Foundation’s Brian Darling weighed in yesterday with his “Where’s the Health Bill?” post in Human Events:

As you read this, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and officials of the Obama administration are in a room at the Capitol rewriting health care policy. The American people aren’t invited. Only a few lobbyists, Obama czars and liberal Senators have even been allowed to see this bill.

The Senate is keeping this bill a secret because politicians were shaken by the August town hall meetings and the rage expressed by the American people toward the president’s version of health care reform. So, to minimize complaints now, the administration and Sen. Reid are making sure citizens are shut out of the process.

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The MSM would like the American public to believe that the Senate Finance Committee bill was scored by the Congressional Budget Office. After all, WaPo, the NYT and the WSJ reported:

WaPo: “The bill would cost $829 billion over the next decade.”

NYT: “The budget office analyzed the bill … its newly projected cost — $829 billion over 10 years.”

WSJ: “The latest Senate health bill will cost $829 billion over a decade.”

But it is a score of a vapor bill — a bill that has no legislative language — and so with much fanfare and pomp the CBO has delivered a Vapor Score of a Vapor Bill. CBO has stated publicly and repeatedly that it cannot accurately score any bill without the legislative language — which does not exist so CBO cannot have it.

Heritage tagged this correctly its Bait and Switch blog:

As the Politico reported yesterday: “While the media and lawmakers often shorthand a CBO letter as a “score” or “cost estimate,” today’s CBO letter is neither. Because the bill is still in “conceptual,” or layman’s terms, CBO’s letter today was a “preliminary analysis.” For it to be an official cost estimate, the bill has to be translated into legislative language.”

And here is a thought from Ryan Ellis at ATR, the reason the latest ObamaCare bill scores so low is because of all the taxes. Here is the list.

For a more wonky analysis of the Vapor Score, see the blog by Donald Marron, a former CBO economist here, and from which the quotes from the MSM above were taken.

Having dinged Heritage a few weeks ago for severely muddying the water over the healthcare debate, you can’t imagine how happy I am to read the President of the Heritage Foundation bringing some much needed clarity to the issue and, thankfully, taking the mud out of the co-op issue.

The health care industry is worth $2.5 trillion a year, comparable with Britain’s entire gross domestic product and larger than that of most European countries. Can you imagine Britain’s entire economy being reordered by a few people working secretly in backrooms in a matter of weeks? What are the chances they could ever get that right?

But the American people cannot take all the credit for slowing down this train wreck. Some of it should go to White House communicators who came up with arguments that were ludicrous on their face, such as insisting that a public option would introduce “competition” into the health insurance market.

On the co-op issue? Feulner and I share the same position and he hits a homerun with this concise statement:

Renaming the public option a “co-op” is disingenuous, for example. It all amounts to the same thing: a single-payer system, which means the only choice Americans would have is a government package.

Exactly. Water un-muddied, the Bob Bennetts of the world, etc. need to now take a page from Ed Feulner’s book and just say no to what the Democrats are offering.

I had intended to let Heritage respond and be done with my rebuke. The more I think about it and consider the responses I’ve gotten, the more I think some additions must be made.

The Heritage response really seems to boil down to two things:

1. How dare you question the Heritage Foundation; and,
2. Don’t you know who we are?

Unfortunately for the Heritage Foundation, the response, which accuses me of “misstating [their] writings” dodges, ducks, and weaves around my post.

First, and I think this is telling, I wrote:

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The Heritage Foundation asked if they could post a response here to my earlier post. Without hesitation, of course they can. As I said earlier, I remain a fan of the Heritage Foundation despite this disagreement.
— Erick

The Heritage Foundation has been clear and forthright in denouncing the health care co-op idea floated by liberals in Washington. As we have said on numerous occasions, their proposal is simply a cartel that would stifle competition, not foster it. It is clear to most reasoned observers that liberals plan to use the concept of co-ops as a backdoor for the introduction of government-run health care, which has already been rejected by the American people via the “public option.”

Since we have written extensively on the concept of free market co-ops, there are people across the political spectrum who will selectively quote our research and writings to misrepresent our position. Erick Erickson, unfortunately, does so today, misstating our writings. It’s ironic, because we are on the same side on this issue.

Erickson is right to be wary of liberals trying to hide behind the language of choice and competition to sell their version of co-ops as anything other than government-run health care. We should know, since we have been warning about this hoax since Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kent Conrad first introduced the idea. Erickson’s line that “the co-op proposal right now will not foster competition, it will just insert the government referee into the health insurance business” could have come straight out of our own writing. Indeed, in a post on our blog The Foundry as early as August 6, The Heritage Foundation wrote:

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[updated]: As if on cue, Stuart Butler from the Heritage Foundation, has decided to take issue with Sarah Palin’s use of the phrase “death panels.” Butler is defending Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm’s brother, who has written that we need not guarantee healthcare benefits to people with dementia because they cannot be full participants in the body politic.

Emanuel’s actual quote: “[S]ervices provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens [in the body politic] are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

Butler is defending Emanuel and attacking Palin at the precise moment the Democrats are in full scale retreat on the issue because of Palin’s offensive. Sigh. These guys have the political instincts of amoebas. They cannot afford to hide behind being policy guys. That policy plays hand in hand with politics and political instincts must be brought to bear in this fight. If they cannot or will not, Heritage must shut these guys up before they cause great damage in the fight.

Because I am a big fan and come from a family of donors to the Heritage Foundation, I take no pleasure at all in writing this post. But this must be said.

The Heritage Foundation, which played a vital part in building conservative support for Romneycare in Massachusetts, is setting the stage for Republican capitulation on healthcare. This is the second time in less than a year that Heritage will have been instrumental in organizing a conservative collapse in opposition to big government. The first time was when Heritage gave conservatives cover to support TARP, calling it “vital and acceptable.”

Now with healthcare, because Heritage is trying to be “helpful”, confusion is starting to crop up among Republicans in Congress at a very critical time in the healthcare debate. Capitulation and compromise are now on the table using a bastardized version of a Heritage proposal.

[Editor's Note: It appears the Hill totally misread or misunderstood Congressman Price and I'm fixing throughout below. CNN has a more accurate description, according to Price's office, and have made changes below to correct the impression that Congressman Price was supportive of the cooperatives idea.]

Today, Congressman Tom Price rejected the possibility that he would support healthcare cooperatives as a compromise on reform.

Unlike Congressman Price, many on the Hill are following all of Heritage’s talking points. Because I can’t seem to get Heritage to realize just how badly it is about to shoot conservatives in the foot, I must endeavor to get Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) to shut up.

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My friend Erik Telford sent this on to me and I want to make sure you all see it. It is definitely worth participating in if you can:

New York Senator Chuck Schumer recently said that “the American people don’t really care” about the wasteful pork-barrel spending that is sinking us dangerously into debt, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has told critics to “get a life!”

It’s time to send a message to Senators Schumer and Reid that enough is enough! American citizens DO care, we DO have lives and families, and we’re fed up with policies that mortgage our futures and rob us of our economic liberties.

Americans for Prosperity Foundation and Heritage Foundation have launched a joint project called Stop Spending Our Future to provide average Americans with the opportunity to speak up and make their voices heard over the widespread outrage to record-breaking debt spending.

Visit www.StopSpendingOurFuture.org to speak up, make a difference, and maybe even stimulate your own economy by participating in one of our four contests with $5,000 in prize money.

As a result of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid so-called “stimulus,” your portion of the national debt increased by $9,400. All three have stated that they want the money spent as quickly as possible; creating a situation that is ripe for waste, fraud and abuse.

The government has already pledged more than $3.8 trillion in its attempt to solve this economic crisis, that’s more than the cost of World War II. As though that’s not enough, the government has committed to spend trillions more over the next few years, which will bring the grand total to a staggering $11.6 trillion in new spending. That’s more than 26 times the size of the New Deal.

We will not stop this spending spree with policy wonks and talking heads. It takes average Americans – just like you – to tell the stories of how this record spending and erosion of individual economic liberty will impact you, your family, and your children’s future. 

Visit www.StopSpendingOurFuture.org and speak out!  

P.S. The four contests include:

• Make a Video| What’s your biggest frustration about the government’s appetite for more spending in the midst of the tough economic climate? The top 5 submissions will each receive a prize in the amount of $500.

• Write a Letter | Explain how you feel about the debt via a letter that your child, grandchild, or great-grandchild will open 30 years from now? The top 5 submissions will each receive a prize in the amount of $250.

• Give It a Name| Convey the threat of government over-spending and/or excessive debt using 10 words or less. The single best idea-as voted on by visitors to this website-will receive $250 and be the basis for a new video.

• Spread the Word| Tell the story of the historic Taxpayer Tea Parties by submitting pictures or video from a Tea Party that you attended. The best entry will be selected for a prise of $1,000.