You heard right. The Congressional Budget Office says that even with an $829 billion price tag, the Senate Finance Committee health plan would reduce the federal budget deficit by $81 billion over 10 years.
In a 27-page analysis released this afternoon, the nonpartisan budget group said the proposal, developed by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), would expand coverage to 29 million more Americans by 2019 by dramatically expanding Medicaid coverage for the poor and by subsidizing private insurance for low- and middle-income Americans.
The overall reform costs would be more than offset by reducing spending on Medicare and other federal health programs by about $400 billion over the next decade. Also helping foot the bill would be fees on insurance companies, drug makers and medical device manufacturers. The argument is that those groups would be making more money on the additional customers, so they can afford to pay the fees.
Feel free to electronically thumb through the CBO report.
Or you can check out Tax Policy Blog, which has distilled the data into a collection of easy-to-read tables. Take special note of the last one, which shows that over a decade, $196 billion would be raised by "revenue increases elsewhere," or, as the CBO document refers to it, "other provisions affecting revenues."
Is it just me, or does Congress using the catchall term "Other" in creating any legislation, and particularly tax legislation, seem like a really bad idea?
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Evan
Kay,
I saw that post – CRAZY! Some other staggering items:
1)
Excise Tax on High-Premium Insurance Plans
$201 billion
Penalty Payments by Uninsured Individuals
$4 billion
Penalty Payments by Employers whose workers receive subsidies
$23 billion
Other
$83 billion
Ummmm…what happens if people actually do what the gov’t wants them to do and there is less penalities collected?
2)
SPENDING REDUCTIONS (over 10 years)
Reductions in Medicare Payment Rates
$162 billion
Medicare Advantage Payments Set at Average Bid
$117 billion
Reductions in Medicare and Medicaid Hospital Payments
$45 billion
Other Program Savings
$80 billion
TOTAL
$404 billion
Don’t you think you are going to have a doctor revolt if you keep cutting their income?
WOW!
Thecancer
I’m so tired of all this retoric from both sides. Nothing that either party will do is going to help us, the general public. The only ones who will win in the end are the health insurance companies and the government. It sounds like we’re only being told part of the story (as usual). What are these “other revenues” and “other tax provisions”? I don’t see them spelled out to my satisfaction. All I know for sure is that I feel like we’re going to get screwed in the long run, one way or another. And I can’t understand penalizing people for not getting insurance. If you can’t afford it what are you supposed to do? It’s like auto insurance, that was made manditory for everyone and I didn’t see the prices coming down, the insurance companies just got a permanent income stream.