United Liberty

There is yet another score from the Congressional Budget Office for ObamaCare (it hasn’t been released to the public). According to the Wall Street Journal, the legislation will cost $849 billion in the first ten years and also cut budget deficits by $127 billion. Oh, and it contains a government-run option:

All Americans would be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, a government plan or by purchasing it on their own. The Medicaid health insurance program for low-income people would be significantly expanded.

The bill would set up new insurance marketplaces — called exchanges — primarily for those who now have a hard time getting or keeping coverage. Most people buying coverage through the exchanges would get tax credits to help cover the cost of premiums. They would be able to pick private coverage or a new government health insurance plan.

However, the government plan may not be available all across the country. Mr. Reid would allow individual states to opt out.

As I’ve noted in posts on previous scores, the CBO always adds that each score is “subject to substantial uncertainty” because these estimates are almost always inaccurate.

The word this afternoon was that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was “very pleased” with the score. Peter Suderman says there is a good explanation for that:

Of course he is [pleased]: It’s doubtful that we’d be getting a score today if he weren’t; according to one of Klein’s recent posts, the reason we didn’t see the score last Friday, as originally expected, is that the CBO’s numbers came back to Reid, but weren’t what was hoped. As a result, the bill, according to Klein, was “tweaked and trimmed until CBO [gave] Reid the answer he’s looking for.” Indeed, this is often how the scoring process works: Legislators work closely with CBO to push and pull at various elements of the bill until the CBO’s math produces the desired result. So given that Reid knows exactly what it will be in advance (he sees preliminary numbers), can choose to release the score or resubmit again, and has been working with the CBO to make sure the numbers are to his liking, it’s hardly surprising to see that, on a high profile bill like this, Reid is happy with the result.

Consider this…the estimated cost savings of this bill for ten years are less than the $176.4 billion budget deficit for the month of October and meaningless compared to the $9 trillion budget deficits that are predicted through 2019.

Don’t buy into what you’re hearing, this bill is still a budget buster.