Sen. Max Baucus' bill, which he said would cost $774 billion over the next 10 years, would reduce budget deficits by about $50 billion over the same time period, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The Washington Post: "In a preliminary analysis, the CBO said the package would cover 94 percent of Americans by 2019, leaving 25 million people uninsured — a third of them illegal immigrants who would not be eligible to participate in the exchanges. ... To pay for expanding coverage, Baucus proposes cutting payments to hospitals and other providers that serve recipients of Medicare, the federal health-care program for the elderly, and to tax, for the first time, the nation's most generous health insurance policies. The package also would impose $93 billion in fees on insurance companies, drugmakers and other sectors of the health-care industry. And it would collect nearly $50 billion in penalties from people who do not obtain health insurance and employers who do not offer their workers affordable options for coverage. Because the value of those provisions would grow faster than the cost of expanding coverage, the package would reduce budget deficits now and in the foreseeable future, the CBO said" (Montgomery and Murray, 9/17).