UPDATE II: The Bill
Here's the Bill http://rules.house.gov/bills_d...
UPDATE: Here's the official CBO report in PDF http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113...
Ezra Klein has the scoop (apparently), and the AP is picking up on it.
It's a numbers crunch on votes, and on the money to be spent, and the deficit reduced, and it looks like supporters of the bill have another piece of good news to keep the momentum going into the vote (whenever it occurs). The CBO's numbers look good.
Some momentum from Minnesota was added yesterday when Representative Jim Oberstar announced that he is a solid "yes" on voting for the bill. This announcement prompted "Catholics United" to start airing TV ads thanking Rep. Oberstar for his support of the the bill. The ads are part of a "broader national campaign to underscore Catholic support for health care reform," according to a statement released by the Catholic group.
http://minnesotaindependent.co...
The rest of Ezra Klein's write up:
http://voices.washingtonpost.c...
According to a Democratic source, CBO has finished its work and will release the official preliminary score later today. But here are the basic numbers: The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130 billion during that period. In the second 10 years -- so, 2020 to 2029 -- it will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. The legislation will cover 32 million Americans, or 95 percent of the legal population.
To put this in context, that's more deficit reduction than either the House or Senate bill, and more coverage than the Senate bill.
How they got these numbers, and whether there are important qualifiers, will be easier to say once CBO releases its analysis. But the bottom line is that this is the exact sort of score that Democrats wanted, and is in fact considerably better than some had come to expect they would receive. Coverage is better than the Senate bill, which will reassure liberals, and deficit reduction is better than either bill, which will reassure conservatives.
And from Marc Ambinder: http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...
With the unveiling of the health reform reconciliation compromise set for noon ET, Democrats are beginning to leak results of the long-awaited Congressional Budget Office score of the provisions. They're pretty good.
The deficit over the first ten years drops by $130 billion compared to the baseline. Importantly, especially for wavering Democrats like Brian Baird, it reduces the debt by $1.2 trillion in the second ten years. Apparently, the CBO says that the bill would reduce Medicare expenditures by about 1.4% per year, extending the solvency of the program by nine years. Thirty-two million Americans will be covered -- about 95% of all those eligible. The cost over decade one: $940 billion. The release today will help Speaker Nancy Pelosi fulfill her promise of providing 72 hours to review the bill before the vote, which is on tap for Sunday. |
