CBO Runs Through the Health Numbers, One More Time
The Congressional Budget Office has finished its preliminary run-through of cost numbers for the latest — and perhaps final — version of the Democratic health plan before it comes to an expected vote as early as Sunday. Democrats liked what they saw and President Obama again delayed an Asia trip to make one final push on the overhaul. See more here.
In its new estimate, the nonpartisan CBO sliced the numbers several ways. The estimates getting the most attention assume that Congress will actually vote on two pieces of legislation — the Senate health plan passed in late December that the House hasn’t yet approved and a so-called reconciliation bill making changes to the health opus that both chambers still must vote on.
So if you can stand one more set of numbers, here we go:
The tab in the first decade for expanding coverage is $940 billion. After penalty payments by workers and employers without coverage and other items like taxes on Cadillac health plans, the net cost of added coverage would be $794 million.
The projected budget deficit would shrink by $138 billion over 10 years.
Some 32 million uninsured will get health insurance. Of those, 19 million people would […]
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