The CBO’s Baucus health bill boost

Did the Congressional Budget Office give a green light to Sen. Max Baucus’ health-care legislation?

“That loud sound you heard” in Washington on Wednesday night, said Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic, was “the collective exhale of Democrats.” The “magical Congressional Budget Office” has weighed in on Sen. Max Baucus’ Finance Committee health-care bill, and the proposal won’t add to the deficit. In fact, while it will cost $829 billion over 10 years, it will lower the deficit by $81 billion. Given the bipartisan “shared reverence for the CBO,” that’s great news for Baucus.

Let me “translate” the CBO’s assumptions, said Tevi Troy in National Review. The bill will raise $311 billion in new taxes on “high-value” insurance plans, mandate that everyone get coverage, unrealistically cut Medicare payments, and still leave 25 million people uninsured (one-third of them illegal immigrants). “The Baucus people are probably happy,” but this seems a “cumbersome and expensive” way to cover only 54 percent of the uninsured.

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