Anxiously Awaiting Final Amendments to the Baucus Health Reform Bill

Anxiously Awaiting Final Amendments to the Baucus Health Reform Bill in Politics and Legislation

As amendments to the Baucus bill start coming in from the Finance Committee, it’s going to be interesting to see what emerges.

The complaint that’s been consistently lobbied at health care reform has been its price tag. But the Congressional Budget Office has calculated the Baucus bill would only cost $774 billion over 10 years, over $100 billion less than what Baucus had estimated.

Not only that, but the CBO deemed the bill would be fully funded through its proposed cost savings and new taxes and fees on the health industry. As a matter of fact, they said it would save the government money over time, reducing the federal deficit $49 billion by 2019.

However, should no reform pass, warned the CBO, the year 2019 would instead see the 46 million people who are currently without health insurance grow to 54 million. Here, the Baucus bill got points again for being able to cut this number in half.

The bill doesn’t have a public option, though, which has a lot of folks upset. As we blogged about a month ago, at least 60 lawmakers in the house have espoused opposition to any bill that didn’t offer a government-sponsored option…

From what we can the bill is faring okay, so far. The Democratic leadership, the White House and even the Blue Dogs have rallied behind it. As the 5 o’clock deadline for Finance Committee amendments passes by, we are most intrigued to see what they reveal about who is in fact intent on passing health care legislation this year and, of course, how they propose to do it.

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