Today, the Washington Times has an article carrying the headline “Small businesses turn against health plan.” With a headline like that, it seems logical that the article would provide some examples of small business owners turning against the health reform plans that are before Congress. But instead, the Times reported this:

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) says small-business owners should worry about the bills’ requirement that employers provide health insurance, and about higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for the proposed benefits. NFIB, a powerful lobbying group and a traditional friend to conservative causes, also says the House reform bills wouldn’t be effective in decreasing insurance costs.

So the headline is based solely on a conservative lobbying group’s warnings about the bill, and not on any evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) that businesses are changing their support for the health reform bills. Actually, the only small business cited in the article at all is David White’s auto shop in Bar Harbor, ME. White is a member of the Main Street Alliance, a small-business group that supports Democratic reform proposals.

Meanwhile, the NFIB “was instrumental in blocking health reform in 1994,” and is back to its same old tricks now, propagating misleading studies that exaggerate the effects that reform will have on small businesses. In fact, the two proposals that that the NFIB claims small businesses “should worry about” — the employer mandate and a surtax on the wealthy — exempt 87 and 96 percent of small businesses, respectively.

Fifty eight percent of all small-business owners say that they’re having a hard time keeping up with the cost of health care, and the percentage of employers with fewer than 200 employees that offer insurance fell to 59 last year, down from 66 percent in 2002. So the real question here is: Why is the NFIB, which claims to be looking out for the interest of small business, opposing reform that will help those businesses control skyrocketing health care costs? And why is the Washington Times willing to air the NFIB’s grievances as indicative of the entire small business community?

Tomorrow, both the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will release revised deficit projections showing that the 2009 deficit will be slightly lower than previously estimated, but that ten-year deficits will be about $2 trillion more. Reuters’ Jeff Mason wrote today that the new projections will likely “provid[e] further fiscal fodder to opponents of Obama’s nearly $1 trillion healthcare overhaul plan.” And indeed, Pat Buchanan had this to say today on MSNBC:

Let me say a word here for the Blue Dogs and the Republicans. Joe, I got up on Saturday, coming on over to MSNBC, and it said Obama said ‘well, we made a slight mistake,’ the ten-year year deficit total is not $7.1 trillion, it’s 9 trillion dollars. [...] And Joe, we’re talking about another $1 trillion entitlement program? Are we serious? [...] As a conservative going up there, I’d say, look you guys, we can’t afford this!

Watch it:

Echoing this, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told ABC’s This Week that the high deficit “gives people pause about another trillion dollars that would have to be spent to reform health care.”

First, it’s pretty disingenuous for Buchanan and Joe Scarborough to treat the revised numbers as if they are the product of a math error, instead of revisions that take into account updated economic information and data. Both OMB and CBO have released numerous projections this year, taking into account changing economic conditions. For instance, the 2009 deficit projection went down after less money was spent on the bank rescue than anticipated.

Second, every time new projections come out, the inevitable first question is whether they mean the death of health care reform. But as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out, “the new projections won’t provide any evidence” to bolster the claim that health reform shouldn’t occur:

Not only will it be hard to say whether the projections clearly show an improvement or worsening in the fiscal outlook (better or worse than what?), but the factors that are likely to determine the final size of the deficit in 2009 — the costs recorded for TARP and for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — have nothing to do with questions that some are hoping the new projections will answer.

It remains the case that the best way to get long-term deficits under control is to slow down their “key driver”: skyrocketing health care costs. Without reform, the federal budget will be crippled — which is a fact that these updated projections do not refute.