Breaking News: Cost Of Senate Democrats Health Insurance Bill Is $849 Billion - CBO Says

[kpete]

Source: MSNBC

Breaking News:Cost Of Senate Democrats Health Insurance Bill Is $849 Billion, CBO Says

reduces Deficit $127 Billion

94% of American covered.

Reduces number of uninsured Americans by 31 million.







Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

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Senate Health Bill Totals $849 Billion

by

FOXNews.com

The Senate's version of President Obama's sweeping health care plan would cost $849 billion, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

The Senate's version of President Obama's sweeping health care plan would cost $849 billion, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released the bill and its price tag to his colleagues Wednesday afternoon. He has spent weeks merging two versions of the bill that passed out of two separate Senate committees.

Reid plans to hold a procedural vote as early as Thursday to begin debate on Saturday.

Reid has been trying to muster the 60 votes needed to start debate, but senior Democratic leadership aides told Fox News that Reid is all but certain to reach that threshold. Though Democrats have a 60-vote majority, moderate Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas were thought to be on the fence.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/18/reid-moves-starting-debate-senate-health-care/

and more:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/cbo-senate-bill-costs-849-billion-major-deficit-reducer.php?ref=fpa

[cutlassmama]

1. Yay! less than the 900 billion predicted. There is room to haggle

[tridim]

2. And no room for Holy Joe to fuck it up for everyone else.

[tomm2thumbs]

3. I like how Fox says 'the Senate's version of President Obama's ...plan'

trying to stick Obama's name on everything because they think it wins them points to attack it that way

[tazkcmo]

4. I don't believe it.

Surely the Health Insurance Industry wouldn't stand for such a paltry sum. Maybe this is just a down payment so we can continue to die at the hands of for-profit-health care?

[harmonicon]

5. what's wrong with that other 6%?

Medicare for all would cover 100% and cost a lot less. This entire thing is a farce.

[cutlassmama]

6. No one seems to want to talk about WHY they took single payer "off the table"

[karynnj]

15. That is not true - many have said "It can't get the votes"

Senator Kerry very clearly told a single payer advocate that he was for it, but it didn't have the votes and couldn't get the vote. When that didn't satisfy the advocate, he explained that there were too many legislators whose ideologies mean they are unpersuadables. That pure and simple is the reason.

Politics is the are of what is possible. Senator Kerry is right here. There is no possible way that 60 Senators (or possibly more than 15) would vote for single payer. Senator Kerry did say he brought up single payer in the Finance Committee and I assume that many did on the HELP committee. It seems reasonable that little time was spent on ideas that had no chance of passing. Here, it was not even close.

[TomCADem]

7. Great News!

[Cant trust em]

8. Isn't it funny how these good news posts get recs, but no comments? nt

[BumRushDaShow]

9. This version doesn't have a public option, right?

:shrug:

[Orangepeel]

11. it seems that it has an opt out public option

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x7013

[KakistocracyHater]

10. charge it to Carlyle

or put it on the War credit card.

[notesdev]

12. Read closely

"The health care bill--which includes an opt-out public option--will require $849 billion over 10 years in new spending, to be paid for with cuts to Medicare, while reducing the deficit by $127 billion."

Those are going to have to be massive cuts to reduce the deficit by that figure, on top of the new spending.

So I gotta ask... what exactly is being cut?

[TomCADem]

13. There Is A Lot Of Room To Cut!

I am not sure about this argument that any reduction in expenditure must mean that health care will suffer:

First, we pay a lot for our healthcare system on a per capita basis:

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As well as based on a percentage of our GDP:

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Heck, single payer could be characterized as a massive cut to benefits under that metric.

[notesdev]

16. Then why not cut first?

Since everyone is in agreement that there is huge waste and fraud in the system, shouldn't that be an uncontroversial and universally popular measure? Why is solving that problem dependent on any other change? Why isn't it the first order of business?

[TomCADem]

17. Easy Answer, Look At Republican Attacks On Medicare "Cuts"

The so-called "cut" is the limitation on the growth of reimbursement rates, not any actual cut in the benefits to seniors. Yet, this has been spun into some cut in benefits: Doctors will not accept reduced rates, thus Medicare recipients will suffer a cut in benefits. This is the same arguments cited by Republicans attacking the House bill. Likewise, look at single payer which is even more vulnerable to attacks that it would lead to rationing.

We would like to think that Fox News will suddenly concede defeat if we try to pass single payer, but the opposite is true, because the right wing media is using single payer attacks against a bill that is not single payer.

[LynnTheDem]

14. "REDUCES THE DEFICIT"

Funny how the GOP hasn't seen that bit yet.

REDUCES the deficit..."

Nope, bet they won't see it now, either.