The Obama folks are polishing all the weapons in their armory in preparation for the imminent battle over health care reform. Today, they're giving the megaphone to their economists to make the case. Christina Romer, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, has penned an op-ed outlining the economic benefits of reining in costs and expanding coverage. She maps a range of upsides including higher incomes (if people are able to spend less of their salary on health insurance), lower deficits (if government spending on health is reduced), reduced unemployment (if employers can spend less on health care and direct savings towards more employees) and a more flexible labor market (if workers have fewer fears about switching jobs, and people with pre-existing conditions don't have their mobility stanched by a need to cling to their current insurer).

 Romer's arguments sound appealing and sensible on the surface, but the Washington Post's Ezra Klein makes an incisive point about where this reduction in costs is supposed to be coming from:

If I were a deficit hawk, this would be my critique of the Obama administration: Entitlement reform is health care reform. But the health care reform that's been sketched out at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is not entitlement reform. The benefits of comparative effectiveness and health IT are speculative. And the budgetary situation is too dire to put our trust in speculative benefits. The administration -- and more than that, the Congress -- needs to get serious about the budget and cut health spending closer to the bone.

Basically Klein is questioning whether the sources of reduced costs in the Obama plan are as reliable as the Administration's economic estimates need them to be. At this stage the actual cost impact of things like health IT is unclear, and subject to disputing claims by health economists. As such, Klein suggest that this means health reform must include a competitive public plan that has sufficient bargaining power with hospitals and other providers to drive costs down for a significant chunk of Americans. But that's pretty much a dealbreaker for insurers. And so, once again, the fate of health reform will rest on the political will on Capitol Hill to resist significant pressure from insurers. 

Is Dick Cheney more liberal than Barack Obama? Yes, at least on one issue. Speaking at the National Press Club yesterday, Cheney reiterated his support for same-sex marriage, as long as the issue is decided by the states not the federal government. “People ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish,” That officially puts him to the left of President Obama, who has endorsed civil unions rather than marriage, for lesbians and gays. It’s not a new position for Cheney, whose youngest daughter, Mary, is gay. The former Veep has been saying the same thing for years, dating back to the 2000 vice presidential debate with Joe Lieberman. "We ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into," Cheney said back then.

On an unrelated note, Cheney was stopped on the street yesterday by a paparazzi working for TMZ who asked him about Susan Boyle, of all things. “Pretty good,” Cheney says. For the record, this Gaggler was very disappointed not to see Cheney’s talking car.