Politico has just announced that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has released the first set of Congressional Budget Office numbers to reporters this morning.
According to Politico:
The bill would cost $940 billion, and reduce the deficit by $130 billion over the first 10 years and $1.2 trillion in the second 10 years. The deficit numbers Democrats have been most worried about, and will be key to convincing moderates to coming on board with the bill.
More details here
UPDATE:
According to The New Republic, In “Dems Get the CBO Score they Want”:
Democrats in the administration and Congress have agreed on a set of amendments to the Senate health care bill. And, according to House leadership, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is certifying that the amendments will reduce the deficit. That should fulfill the parliamentary requirements of the reconciliation process, satisfy the demands of many nervous Democrats, and clear the way for the House to vote on health care reform.
Overall, according to leadership aides, the underlying Senate health care bill plus the amendments will reduce the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years and $1.2 trillion in the second ten years. Democrats are calling it the “biggest deficit reduction measure in 25 years”–that is, since the 1993 Clinton budget.
This news should ease the anxiety of reform critics, both in Congress and beyond, who worry that health care reform will bankrupt the government or the country. CBO projections are not an exact science, but they’re as reliable as anything we have. If anything, their projections err on the side of excessive caution.
UPDATE II:
A copy of the preliminary CBO budget report is now available here.
UPDATE III
This just in by Ezra Klein:
The question people generally ask about the final health-care reform vote is, “Won’t it be politically difficult for many House Democrats to vote yes?” But with the release of the CBO report (pdf), I’d flip that question a bit: Won’t it be substantively difficult for many House Democrats to vote no?
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People pay a lot of attention to the difficult politics of health-care reform, but at the end of the day, the task of writing the policy will be seen as the harder, and more consequential, element of this effort. But it worked. Democrats got the score they needed, and now they can go to their liberals and say that this is closer to universality than we’ve ever been, and they can go to their conservatives and say this does more for deficit reduction than has ever been done, and both things will be true.
If this bill does pass on Sunday, that, and not deals or polls or rides on Air Force One, will be why
To read everything in between, click here.
