In other words the numbers could change.
By David M. Herszenhorn & Robert Pear
Throughout Thursday news accounts including our own focused on $894 billion the total cost given out by aides to the House speaker Nancy Pelosi before the official cost analysis was released by the Congressional Budget Office.
But a closer look at the budget office report suggests that the number everyone should have reported was $1.055 trillion which is the gross cost of the insurance coverage provisions in the bill before taking account of certain new revenues including penalties by individuals and employers who fail to meet new insurance requirements in the bill. According to the budget office the overall cost of the bill is more than offset by revenues from new taxes or cuts in spending by the government resulting in a reduction in future budget deficits of $104 billion.
All of these figures cover a 10-year period from 2010 to 2019.
The $894 billion figure that was initially seized on was not chosen at random. It is featured prominently in the budget office report as the net cost of the insurance coverage provisions in the bill. But the net coverage cost is not the number that lawmakers the news media and other experts and analysts have focused on in recent months.
For instance the bill initially proposed by Senator Max Baucus Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee after months of negotiations with a bipartisan group of five other senators was projected by the budget office to have a gross cost $774 billion.
After two weeks of public debate by the Finance Committee and votes on numerous amendments the bill ended up with a projected gross cost of $829 billion. Both the $774 billion and $829 billion figures are comparable to the $1.055 trillion gross cost of the House measure.
In a news release shortly before House Democrats held a rally to unveil the bill Ms. Pelosis office wrote: The legislations coverage cost will be $894 billion over 10 years fully paid for." And in her speech at the event Ms. Pelosi said: It reduces the deficits meets President Obamas call to keep the cost under $900 billion over 10 years and it insures 36 million more
Americans."
Aides to Ms. Pelosi defended their decision to focus on the $894 billion net figure. They also pointed out that in an apples to apples" comparison $1.055 trillion for the House bill vs. $829 billion for the Senate Finance measure the House bill is projected to insure 7 million more people.
The budget office has projected that in 2019 the number of uninsured would be 18 million under the House bill compared with 25 million under the Senate Finance Committee measure. A final Senate bill is still in the works. The Senate majority leader Harry Reid has not released details.
But a comparison of the net cost of the insurance provisions shows that the Senate Finance bill would be much cheaper: $518 billion compared to the $894 billion trumpeted by Ms. Pelosis office.
Congressional Republicans who said Thursday that reporters were focusing on the wrong number have contended that all of the Democrats health care proposals are too expensive and would expand the government in ways that could end up increasing future deficits.
Politically the cost issue is very sensitive. In a speech to Congress on Sept. 9 Mr. Obama said that the total cost of his plan to overhaul the health care system would be around $900 billion."
Add it all up and the plan Im proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars" the president said in that speech.
In seeking to stay within those guidelines lawmakers have focused on the gross cost of the coverage provisions. By that yardstick the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the House bill unveiled on Thursday would cost $1.055 trillion or about $150 billion (or $15 billion a year) more than Mr. Obama had said the legislation should cost.
So lets recap. According to the Congressional Budget Office the House bill unveiled on Thursday is projected to cost
$1.055 trillion with those costs fully offset by taxes and spending cuts. The Senate bill is not done but the bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee was projected to cost $829 billion also fully offset.
And now one more bit of fine print. The budget office in its report on the House bill warned that its analysis was preliminary in a section titled Important Caveats Regarding This Preliminary Analysis."
For a number of reasons the preliminary analysis that is provided in this letter does not constitute a final and comprehensive cost estimate" the budget office wrote. Although C.B.O. completed a preliminary review of legislative language prior to its release the agency has not thoroughly reviewed the introduced legislation to verify its consistency with the previous draft. Moreover the analysis does not reflect all of the provisions of the bill."
In other words: the numbers could change.
