Politics

CBO Score of Revised Health Care Bill Leaks

By Sunlight Foundation & Participatory Politics Foundation

Our long national nightmare is finally over. The Congressional Budget Office’s score of the amended Senate health care bill has finally leaked. According to the CBO, the final package will cost $940 billion and will reduce the deficit by $130 billion over the first ten years and possibly $1.2 trillion over the next ten years.

These numbers are significant for several reasons. First, they finally allow the Senate parliamentarian to start issuing rules on what can and can’t be passed through the budget reconciliation process. Second, they allow the Democrats to start their self-imposed 72-hour countdown for legislation to be posted online before it is voted on. Third, the deficit savings may be another carrot Democratic leadership can use to persuade jittery House Democrats to vote for the Senate bill (H.R.3590) and may shift the debate back to what the bill does instead of how democrats are trying to pass it.

One interesting thing to note is that this new bill costs roughly $90 billion more than the previous Senate health care bill and costs $40 billion more than the $900 billion ceiling President Obama last fall promised.

When the full CBO report and final health care bill language are available, we’ll post them. For more on the CBO score right now, check out the Hill and Talking Points Memo.

Full post as published by Open Congress on March 19, 2010 (boomark / email).