"Leaning Somewhat Conservative"

Ah, factcheck.org, the most useless organization on the planet.

BROOKS JACKSON: $1.5 trillion. The president's correct: There is an independent study from the American Enterprise Institute that came out that day that costs Kerry's plan at $1.5 trillion.

What the president doesn't mention is that there is also an earlier study done by Professor Ken Thorpe at Emory University that costs it at less than half that, between $600 billion and $700 billion. Now, these are both ten-year figures, and Professor Thorpe, who used to work for the Clinton administration and the American Enterprise Institute, which is pro-business, leaning somewhat conservative, are arguing over who's right about this.

What's interesting, though, is that these two studies actually agree on a couple of things. One is that Kerry's plan would cover an additional 27 million persons who are not covered by health insurance, and that's many times more than President Bush's much less expensive plan, and that the plan would also drop health premiums for those who already have health insurance, which it is designed to do.