latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates for the Senate health care bill, finding good news for advocates of reform. Jon Gruber at MIT, who’s research Klein is relying on, found that when Massachusetts implemented reforms similar to those proposed in the Senate the cost of insurance fell dramatically. The average cost of an individual premium in 2006 was $8537; its now $5143, a reduction of 40%. During this same period the average premium for all Americans rose by 14%.

The CBO estimates that the Senate bill will lower the average cost of an individual premium by 20%, and the CBO is notorious for giving conservative estimates. This is a major blow to Republicans, who in some cases argue that “socialized medicine” will only makes things worse. Even if they believe that market-based reforms are the way to go, those seem impossible with Democratic control of Congress. Are they really willing to vote against a bill that will lower the cost of insurance for Americans?

“One of the tricky things about policy debates is that the cost of doing something gets a lot more attention than the cost of doing nothing,” Klein reminds us. Maybe legislators don’t care so much (they receive free government care), but are Republicans (and Lieberman) ready to deprive Americans of a 20% reduction in costs and leave them to another double-digit increase?