Klein writes:

Over on the HCAN site, they're arguing that "The House bill covers more people, is more affordable, and is just as deficit neutral as the Finance bill." The first two clauses are true. The third simply isn't. The House bill is funded through income taxes, which don't grow as quickly as health-care costs. In the second decade, the costs of the plan rapidly outpace the revenues, and the deficit explodes. Conversely, the excise tax is inside the health-care sector, and is designed to grow more quickly than health-care costs. It cuts the deficit in the second 10 years, which makes it quite a bit friendlier to the budget.

(Emphasis supplied.) Because the excise tax on health care is "designed" to grow more quickly than health care costs does not mean it will. Indeed, to assume, as the CBO does, that there will be no adjustments made by employer purchasers of health insurance to AVOID the excise tax is sheer nonsense. (Anyone ever hear of folks asking for paycuts to avoid income tax?) Moreover, Ezra has not seen even a CBO scoring of the House bill, which is pending("The [CBO] estimates [. . .] do not indicate what their impact would be on the nation's budget deficit"), (See also Scarecrow for a further debunking of Klein's claim) so he has no idea what even the CBO will say on that score.

This is part of a point I made earlier - "I urge people in the coming weeks of intense negotiations to read whatever [P]rogressive" Village wonks (Ezra, Jon Cohn, Steve Benen, [Yglesias], Kevin Drum etc.)[. . .] through that prism [their tacit support for BaucusCare.] Here is Ezra implausibly attacking the House bills because he prefers BaucusCare to the proposals from the House. It would be preferable if he just would say so imo.

Speaking for me only