« The AMA Now Supports the Public Option | Main | WTF? »
July 2, 2009
More Great News
If you recall, the CBO scored the Kennedy-Dodd HELP version of healthcare reform legislation with many of the important details left out, including the public option. Consequently, the cost ended up being over $1 trillion.
Now they've finally had a chance to evaluate the plan with the public option included and the results are much more positive.
The plan carries a 10-year price tag of slightly over $600 billion, and would lead toward an estimated 97 percent of all Americans having coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and Chris Dodd said in a letter to other members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. [...]The [employer mandate] provision is also estimated to greatly reduce the number of workers whose employers would drop coverage, thus addressing a major concern noted by CBO when it reviewed the earlier proposals.
The $600 billion price tag is covered under the president's "down payment" he outlined in his budget. With additional savings, it appears (at a glance) that if everything goes according to plan, the public option and healthcare reform could actually run a surplus.
Filed under: CBO || Healthcare || Public Option
 |  |  |  |  |
Posted By Bob Cesca | July 2, 2009 8:40 AM
Comments
The surplus is not surprising. There's bound to be extra money after most people realize that the public option will kick private insurance's ass in cost, especially for small businesses. After all, someone has to reap the benefit of not paying nearly thirty percent in administration and profit.
But I'm wondering, why are three percent still left uncovered? Do you know how they came up with that figure, and what the cause is? Are those maybe people who choose to self-fund their own health care?
Posted by: Political Party Pooper ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.bobcesca.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 2, 2009 9:39 AM
Yeah I don't understand who the three percent will be either. Will I be in that three? Plus, if it does run a surplus and works relatively well, hopefully they'll be able to say "hey let's pump another few billion into this and cover the remainder."
Posted by: Nanotyrannus at July 2, 2009 9:46 AM
that just sounds too good to be true. Oh man, please, that would be so awesome. Still you'd have plenty of democrats voting against it.
Posted by: eljefejeff at July 2, 2009 10:23 AM
I know this is a little unrelated, but as long we're talking about good news, I have some I would like to share. I was talking with my father-in-law who runs an appliance store that focuses on contractor business (in middle Tennessee), and he said that over the past month their business has has been on a sharp and steady incline after a long period of no business at all. He said they're expecting to be back to normal levels by the end of summer if this rate keeps up.
Again, I know it's not exactly on point, but in the interest of lifting spirits before the long weekend, I wanted to put that out there. This health care news has me almost excited.
Posted by: camel54 at July 2, 2009 10:34 AM
That is good news Camel!
Posted by: Nanotyrannus at July 2, 2009 12:44 PM
I'm not in favor of a mandate. Healthy people should not be forced to join a plan they don't need. The insurance industry is lobbying for a mandate, but we've already had experience with that. They said that if states mandated auto insurance that everybody's rates would go down, and that was BIG fat lie.
Posted by: Matt Osborne at July 2, 2009 3:12 PM
What I want to know is why the CBO always comes out with two versions of estimates? The fucked up wrong version that everyone flips out about, and then a couple of weeks later, the real version with reasonable numbers that everyone ignores because they're still going apeshit over the fake first version!
Posted by: Broadway Carl™ at July 2, 2009 9:48 PM
