Preliminary estimates on the total cost and number of people insured under the two competing House health care proposals have been leaked. Details are vague, and the impact on the deficit is not included, but the leaks are important none the less:
The report from the Congressional Budget Office, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, puts the cost of one plan at $859 billion over the next decade and the other at $905 billion.(...)
Each would expand the ranks of the insured to more than 95 percent of Americans by 2019, and each would create a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurance companies.
Under the $905 billion version favored by liberals, compensation rates for medical providers in the government-run insurance plan would be based on Medicare rates, which are significantly lower than private rates. That idea, which Senate liberals also support, would hold down costs for the government, according to the CBO, but it would create a problem for providers in rural areas where Medicare rates tend to run much lower than the national average.
Under the $859 billion version, administrators would negotiate rates directly with doctors and hospitals, the option preferred by moderate Democrats from rural areas.
While it won't be possible to have a full comparison of the House bills either to each other or to the Baucus bill until the full score is released, here are some key points:
At a ten-year cost of $829 billion, the Baucus bill is estimated to provide 29 million more legal American residents with health insurance, for a total cost of about $2,860 per new person covered. By contrast, the House bills apparently each cover at least 33 million more legal American residents with health insurance ("more than 95%"), at a cost of $859 billion or $905 billion. That is a cost of $2,600 to $2,740 per new person covered, less than the Baucus plan.
Neither House bill is funded through $200 billion tax on high-cost insurance plans, like the Baucus bill. Such a funding mechanism is pure fantasy and will never pass into law, given that it has less than 110 votes in the House (435 members minus 150 Democrats opposed to the plan minus at least 175 Republicans opposed to the plan).
In addition to covering more people, costing less per person covered, and not being based on a fantasyland funding mechanism, both House bills (especially the $905 billion), offer more generous subsidies to people purchasing insurance.
So, both House bills cover more people, at a lower cost per person covered, with politically realistic funding mechanisms, and with higher subsidies for people purchasing insurance.
If the health care debate in the Senate had anything to do with the soundness of policy, numbers this would end it. Then again, if it had anything to do with the soundness of the policy, even the House bills would not have been watered down anywhere near this much.
