CBO Releases Score of Baucus Plan

Below are some excerpts of the CBO's score of Senator Baucus's Health Care Bill.  It was released 9/16/2009.  I have bolded certain sentences.

What is alarming to me, outside of the costs, is how the plan aims to offset some of the costs.  Through taxes and penalty payments (essentially taxes).  This means that the government (and Agencies created to handle the Program) will become increasingly more evident in our personal lives.

On a preliminary basis, CBO and JCT estimate that the proposal’s specifications affecting health insurance coverage would result in a net increase in federal deficits of $500 billion over fiscal years 2010 through 2019. That estimate primarily reflects $287 billion in additional federal outlays for Medicaid (net of reduced outlays for CHIP) and $463 billion in federal subsidies that would be provided to purchase coverage through the new insurance exchanges. The other main element of the proposal that would increase federal deficits is the tax credit for small employers who offered health insurance, which is estimated to reduce revenues by $24 billion over 10 years. Those costs would be partly offset by receipts or savings, totaling $274 billion over the 10-year budget window, from four sources: revenues from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans, totaling $215 billion; penalty payments by uninsured individuals, which would amount to $20 billion; penalty payments by employers whose workers received subsidies via the exchanges, which would total $27 billion; and indirect effects on federal revenues associated with theexpansion of federally subsidized insurance, which would add up to $12 billion.

By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured would be reduced by about 29 million, leaving about 25 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants). Under the proposal, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent currently to about 94 percent. Roughly 25 million people would purchase coverage through the new insurance exchanges, and there would be roughly 11 million more enrollees in Medicaid than is projected under current law. (The proposed co-ops had very little effect on the estimates of total enrollment in the exchanges or federal costs because, as they are described in the specifications, they seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country or to noticeably affect federal subsidy payments.) The number of people purchasing individual coverage outside the exchanges or obtaining coverage through employers would decline slightly, relative to currently projected levels.

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