A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate puts the cost of the Senate Finance Committee's health care overhaul at $829 billion over a decade, well under the $900 billion goal the committee had set. The legislation also would reduce the federal budget by $81 billion over that period, CBO said. Read more »
Can a "public option" pass in the Senate when the chamber starts voting on its health care overhaul—and if so, what would it look like? Those are questions facing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his staff as they work to craft a health care bill to bring to the floor in the coming weeks.
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House Democratic leaders, desperate to cut the cost of a health care overhaul, are considering steps as drastic as increasing the size of the legislation's proposed expansion of Medicaid, lawmakers said. It turns out that covering people through Medicaid is cheaper than providing them subsidies to buy health insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
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As Democratic leaders on both sides of the Capitol work to piece together health care bills for floor votes in the coming weeks, allies of organized labor in the House are weighing in strongly against a Senate Finance Committee plan to tax so-called Cadillac health insurance plans. Read more »
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Friday unearthed a pretty big chunk of scorable savings—legislative language that would reduce the federal deficit by $54 billion over 10 years—but it won't look like gold to Democrats even as they face growing pressure to find more funds to cover the uninsured. Read more »
Some health care industry groups are becoming more vocal in their criticism of Congress' health care overhaul, and in the wake of a new cost and coverage estimate this week are saying that the terms of the deal have become unfair. The industry has been asked to provide billions of dollars to the overhaul effort via fees on their companies, as well as accept new regulations—like one on insurers that would prohibit them from excluding people from coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
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