CBO Scores One for Senate Finance Committee
The Congressional Budget Office released their score on the Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare bill. How will the score impact the ongoing debate?
As the week began, even key Democrats were holding back their final pledge of support for the Senate Finance Committee’s reform bill. Both Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Senator Jay Rockefeller, IV (D-WV) stood back from full support by arguing that “more needs to be done.” But, Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) on Wednesday afternoon had a big smile when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their score for the proposed legislation. A collective sigh of relief was audible in the Democrat corridors of power all across Washington when the CBO score came in at $829 billion over 10 years.
Falling below the absolute maximum cost of $900 billion that President Obama set forth to Congress, the White House’s efforts to pass comprehensive healthcare reform cleared yet another hurdle this week. To illustrate how critical the report was, if the CBO had scored the cost as a higher level, Senator Baucus would have been forced back into committee, prolonging the already drawn out healthcare debate and jeopardizing passage of the bill. Democrats anxiously remembered how President Clinton’s reform efforts were nearly halted when the CBO report came through with higher than expected numbers. In comparing the three pending legislative approaches, the CBO numbers were illustrative along two fronts. First, the net impact on the overall national deficit was a crucial number. Second, the reduction in the number of uninsured was also scored. The results (see hyperlinks for more details) were:
Committee Deficit Contribution Uninsured Reduction
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called the CBO report “another important step down the road toward enacting comprehensive health insurance reform” with the bill insuring 94 percent of all Americans by 2019, up from the current level of 83 percent. The White House also weighed in by stating, “The analysis confirms that we can provide stability and security for Americans with insurance and affordable options for uninsured Americans without adding a dime to the deficit.” However, not everyone was so sanguine; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) countered by saying, “The real bill will be another 1,000 page, trillion dollar experiment that…slashes a half-trillion dollars from seniors’ Medicare, raises taxes…and, vastly expands the role of the federal government….”
The skepticism was not only apparent among Senate Republicans but also among the Blue Dog Coalition in the House. These more fiscally-minded Democrats expressed concern that one of the main sources of revenue in the Senate version is an increase of taxes on the wealthy and a tax on the so-called “Cadillac insurance plans.” Based on their initial reaction, we can expect the Blue Dogs to play a very critical role as the healthcare debate shifts gears away from the Senate.
However, the anticipation created by the CBO estimates is not over. On Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called for a specific CBO evaluation of the public option plans contained in the three different House bills. Clearly, the intent is to evaluate the fiscal impact of the three different approaches so that when a bill comes forward from the Senate later this month the House is prepared for the public option debate. Across the District, the emphasis is on deficit and uninsured impact. And yes, it was another interesting week in Washington, and it will only continue to get more intriguing.
The views and opinions expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Dell Services or its affiliates.
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