From Daily Kos a report on a Washington Post story:
Congressional budget analysts have given House leaders cost estimates for two competing versions of their plan to overhaul the health-care system, concluding that one comes within striking distance of the $900 billion limit set by President Obama and the other falls below it.
House leaders have been working to lower the cost of the $1.2 trillion health-care package they offered in July. The report from the Congressional Budget Office, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, puts the cost of one plan at $859 billion over the next decade and the other at $905 billion.
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Both packages are based on the original House framework, which proposes to extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans by expanding Medicaid eligibility and subsidizing private insurance for people who lack access to affordable coverage through an employer. Each would expand the ranks of the insured to more than 95 percent of Americans by 2019, and each would create a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurance companies.
From TPM LiveWire:
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), formerly of the ill-fated Gang of Six senators on the Senate Finance Committee that had been charged with crafting health care reform legislation, said on Fox News this morning that his committee's health reform bill might have to be scrapped and created again from scratch.
We're expecting a preliminary cost estimate on the package from the CBO later this afternoon. But Grassley said that if CBO's analysis shows that the health care package won't be deficit-neutral and won't reduce health care inflation, then the proposal is in trouble.
"If we get figures back today that don't do that, then we're going to have to go back to the drawing board as a committee and make changes that accomplish both of those things, otherwise we've wasted a whole six months."
Grassley also took a shot at the White House, saying the Obama administration broke up the Gang of Six.
"The White House pulled the rug out from under us," Grassley said.
Congress Daily reports new CBO estimates show a strong public option would save an additional $85 billion compared to a weak one. Those who oppose the public option -- Republicans and a diminishing group of Democrats -- really are on the wrong side of this debate. The public option isn't about creating an expensive new government program that would give Ronald Reagan nightmares -- it's about making health care insurance cheaper and better for more people.
The public option is a simple idea, it's a good idea, and it's popular. There is no reason it shouldn't happen. Read it all at Daily Kos
From OurFuture.org
The CBO recently published a new letter on health care reform. They were asked to evaluate the impact of the weak (level playing field) public option in the Senate HELP committee's bill. Their conclusion was that the competitive pressure from the public option "would probably lower private premiums in the insurance exchanges to a small degree," and with a public plan in the exchange "the costs and premiums of competing private plans would, on average, be slightly lower than if no public plan was available." By reduce the cost of buying private insurance on the exchange, a public plan, "would tend to lower federal subsidy payments through the exchanges."
It is important to remember that the premimums for an average health insurance plan for a family of four is $13,000 a year. Even reducing the cost by a very small 4% would saving a family $520.
The benefits of the public option would not be restricted to just the minority of people who choose to sign up for it. The public option would also reduce premiums for those choosing private plans. The public option would also reduce the overall government cost of health care reform.
Progressives are not fighting for a public option for some purely ideological reason. They are fighting for it because Congress' own budget office concluded that even a weak public option would reduce the cost of health care reform and would save millions of Americans billions of dollars on their health insurance premiums, regardless if they select a private or public plan. A public option is both a smart and a very popular idea.
The Congressional Budget Office may be missing potential savings from various health reform proposals by not looking at efforts to manage or prevent expensive, chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, researchers said in a study released on Tuesday. The nonpartisan CBO, charged by Congress to estimate the cost of various programs, now uses a 10-year forecast that cannot look at the cost of programs aimed at diseases that can last for decades, researchers at the University of Chicago said.
Instead, the CBO should use methods that would weigh savings from earlier treatment and other intervention that could help reduce costly complications from conditions that arise when left untreated or improperly treated, they said.
Lawmakers need cost estimates that look at a period of 25 years for healthcare legislation, they said in their study, which was sponsored by diabetes drug maker Novo Nordisk A/S and looked at a scientific model to help estimate such costs for long-term diseases.
"Although this would not be necessary for the vast majority of cost estimates produced by the CBO, it would improve the information available when Congress considers health legislation with implications for the treatment of a relatively small number of costly chronic illnesses," they wrote. Read it all at Reuters
A new report [PDF] from the Congressional Budget Office shows that a strong public plan would increase the federal government's tax revenue and wages for some workers. The CBO concludes:
if more employers purchased coverage through the exchanges than we anticipate and purchased somewhat less expensive insurance via the public plan, the principal effect on federal deficits is that those employers would end up increasing their workers’ taxable compensation and thereby would generate slightly higher tax revenues.
This is in addition to reducing the cost of insurance for individuals, reducing the cost of employer provided insurance for small businesses, and reducing the amount in subsidies the government will give to individuals help to buy insurance.
The public option would not cost the federal government money. It would, in fact, save the government money and increase revenue from taxes. Source: The Walker ReportI still want the CBO to run the numbers for Single Payer...
More evidence that we need Single-Payer plan if we want to cover everyone AND save money.
A key House chairman and moderate House Democrats on Tuesday agreed to a White House-backed proposal that would give an outside panel the power to make cuts to government-financed health care programs. White House budget director Peter Orszag declared the plan "probably the most important piece that can be added" to the House's health care reform legislation.
But on Saturday, the Congressional Budget Office said the proposal to give an independent panel the power to keep Medicare spending in check would only save about $2 billion over 10 years- a drop in the bucket compared to the bill's $1 trillion price tag. Read it all at POLITICO.com
Todays kerfuffle over the phony release of the grossly incomplete CBO report, is a reminder that what we really need is a complete and honest analysis of all the major health care proposals out there.
Complete is the key word here, because most of what is being talked about, regardless of whether it is Enzi and Grassley, or Baucus and alas sometimes Obama, is just the Federal government cost. That is a dishonest, incomplete picture.
What about the costs to State government?
What about the costs to Employers?
What about the cost to Individuals/families/households...?
What about total costs to the U.S., in dollars and as a percent of GNP, showing whether it will really control total costs?
Fortunately, such an analysis and report was done in early 2009, but since it confirmed an inconvenient truth, it has been largely ignored.
What we really need is a complete, honest, side-side comparison of all proposals, including single payer.
That comparison must NOT bee limited to just the costs to the Federal government, but also the total costs (e.g., currently about 2.5 trillion and 17% of GNP) as well as the costs to State government, employers, and individuals and household of different income levels.
The closest we have is the analysis and report done by the liberal leaning pro-reform Commonwealth Fund think tank, which supports the Obama "Building Blocks" approach, with both individual and employer mandates and a moderately strong public option (essentially the same as Jacob Hacker, HCAN, Campaign for America, Edwards and Clinton from the campaign, etc). Their partner in analysis is the industry gold-standard Lewin Group (which is actually owned by United Health and so if biased, certainly is biased against single payer as well as strong public option. The Building Blocks plan, like the Obama and Baucus plan, would increase costs overall, and to the federal government and for employers. The Wyden plan dumps even heavier on employers.
Regardless of what the CBO or GAO or beltway mainstream may say, being "revenue neutral" and saving the Federal government money is not the most important goal of health care reform.
We do need to control costs, but it is overall total costs that are what really count.
And, we also need to provide coverage that is truly Universal for all people, Comprehensive in covering all health needs, and does not bankrupt you if you get sick. Thanks to DrSteveB at Daily Kos - Click here to read it all and see the great charts.
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