More from Ezra Klein on the CBO Score...

[flpoljunkie]

CBO: Health-care reform bill cuts deficit by $1.3 trillion over 20 years, covers 95%

Washington has spent the past week or so waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to release its preliminary estimate of the Senate bill with the reconciliation fixes. Not only are those numbers important for the debate, but Democratic leaders refuse to release the actual text of their changes until CBO releases the specifics of its analysis.

According to a Democratic source, CBO has finished its work and will release the official preliminary score later today. But here are the basic numbers: The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130 billion during that period. In the second 10 years -- so, 2020 to 2029 -- it will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. The legislation will cover 32 million Americans, or 95 percent of the legal population.

To put this in context, that's more deficit reduction than either the House or Senate bill, and more coverage than the Senate bill.

How they got these numbers, and whether there are important qualifiers, will be easier to say once CBO releases its analysis. But the bottom line is that this is the exact sort of score that Democrats wanted, and is in fact considerably better than some had come to expect they would receive. Coverage is better than the Senate bill, which will reassure liberals, and deficit reduction is better than either bill, which will reassure conservatives.

By Ezra Klein

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/cbo_health-care_reform_bill_cu.html

[babylonsister]

1. And this from Ezra, a PS...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/another_way_the_cbo_score_help.html


Another way the CBO score helps the Democrats

It moves the story from process to substance. How Congress will vote is not a good story for the Democrats. What they will be voting on is rather better, and they're much more comfortable talking about it.

By Ezra Klein | March 18, 2010; 9:38 AM ET

[flpoljunkie]

2. I saw that. Thanks for posting it. He makes a great point.

[ProSense]

3. Steve Benen: "No more excuses."

CBO DELIVERS LONG-AWAITED SCORE....

No more excuses. This week, a variety of wavering House Democrats that they wouldn't make up their minds on health care reform until they got the final score on the package from the Congressional Budget Office.

It took longer than expected, but the CBO has weighed in. Democrats looking for an encouraging score should be thrilled.

A Democratic source provides TPM with the CBO's final numbers on the health care reform bill -- the composite analysis of the Senate health care bill as amended by a soon-to-be-released reconciliation bill, which makes a number of amendments. The findings, as expected, keep the bill in line with the Senate bill's stand alone score:

The bill would reduce the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years, and potentially by $1.2 trillion in the second ten years (though CBO always warns that projections into the second decade are extremely unpredictable).

The legislation is fully paid for, reduces the deficit in this decade, and even more in the next decade. It will bring coverage to 32 million Americans -- slightly better than the earlier estimate -- and extend Medicare solvency by at least 9 years while closing the prescription drug "donut hole."

Generally, when a report like this comes out, both parties find specific points to suggest that the score helps their side, not the other. But a report like this one should prove exceedingly difficult for Republicans to spin. If I had to guess, the GOP will talk up the overall price tag -- it's a 10-year, $940 billion package -- because it slightly exceeds the $900 billion ceiling originally talked about.

more

[NJmaverick]

4. This has got to ruin the GOP's day

:party: