Congressional budget analysts gave an important political boost Wednesday to a Senate panel’s health-care overhaul, projecting that the $829 billion measure would dramatically shrink the ranks of the uninsured and keep President Obama’s pledge that doing so would not add “one dime” to federal budget deficits.
With the report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the measure crafted by the Senate Finance Committee has emerged as the only one of five bills by various panels that achieves every important goal Obama has set for his top domestic initiative.
White House budget director Peter Orszag applauded the analysis, saying the bill “demonstrates that we can expand coverage and improve quality while being fiscally responsible,” and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) called the CBO report “another important step down the road toward enacting comprehensive health insurance reform.” But senior Republicans seemed only to harden in their opposition to the measure.
The report clears the way for the Finance Committee chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, to push for a panel vote within the next few days, and sets the stage for Democrats to take legislation to the floor for debate by the full Senate this month.
Despite the expansion of coverage at a cost of $829 billion over 10 years, the budget office said 25 million people — about one-third of them illegal immigrants — would still be uninsured in 2019. In all, it said, the proportion of nonelderly Americans with insurance would rise over the 10 years to 94 percent, from 83 percent today.
The White House now must grow support without growing the bill. And they must navigate concerns over the public option — even while new grass-roots efforts launch to bring Democrats on board for it — while dangling the Finance bill to entice the moderates, and maybe a Republican or two — plus making health care enough about 2010, though not too much…
So we’re not there yet, and even not through the Finance Committee yet (though that could happen by the end of the week). Don’t look now, but there’s a window here for getting something done.
The Faster Read: What if the war in Afghanistan were held to the same “no new debt” standard? McChrystal would be laughed out of the Pentagon.
Image of Max Baucus by CAP Action Fund.
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