Sen. Baucus’s Healthcare Proposal: ‘Less Than a Trillion Dollars and Paid For’
EmailABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports:
But details are elusive.
The nonpartisan $1 trillion over ten year price tag that CBO slapped on part of the Kennedy health committee version of health care has apparently been instructive for the other committee writing a health care bill.
At the Senate Finance Committee, which is also drafting a health care bill, they’re keeping everything under wraps, out of the public view, and behind closed doors.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which is working on a separate but related version of health care reform, admitted today that a past proposal by his committee was estimated by CBO to cost $1.5 trillion over ten years.
But Baucus said today things have changed since that CBO estimate two weeks ago. When will we know his final proposal? It’s still not clear. The Finance Committee is supposed to begin a markup of their bill this week.
A Democratic Finance Committee staffer said today that whatever the Senate Finance Committee ultimately produces “will cost less than a trillion dollars and it will be fully paid for.”
Which is to say that whatever money it aims to spend will be offset with cost savings and tax hikes elsewhere. The big question remains: what cost savings and what tax hikes? Will it be an end to tax-free health benefits? Just rich people’s tax benefits?
President Obama and Sen. Chris Dodd, who is acting as absent Sen. Teddy Kennedy’s right hand man on health care, both say they don’t like the idea of taxing health benefits as income to pay for a health care overhaul. But Baucus has endorsed the idea in the past.
Does the relatively low cost promised for Baucus’ Finance Committee proposal mean he and other moderates will pursue a system of non-profit co-ops to stand in for the government-fun public insurance option that many other Democrats prefer?
Republicans are starting to complain they won’t even get a chance to read through wholesale health care overhauls before being asked to vote on them.
On the Senate floor, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who sits on both of the committees writing health care legislation, said that Democrats seem to be intentionally obfuscating the process.
[UPDATE: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Roberts was blaming Republicans.]
“I said that it's hard to digest all of this in 30 hours. This is not digestion. This is not indigestion. This is heartburn, and it may develop into a malady much more serious than that. Most egregious, perhaps, is the fact that we will most likely be considering these major reforms without any idea of how much they will cost or how they will affect the current system,” Roberts said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has become a chief opponent of a public health insurance plan, said his caucus will need time to review health care proposals.
“I think what we can say about the health care debate at this point is it's in a rather chaotic state,” McConnell said after a meeting with other Republicans. “We don't have bills. We don't have scores. And at the same time the majority is saying we need to act quickly. I think it would be highly irresponsible in the extreme to take up a bill that affects 16 percent of the economy without bill language, without scores, and on a rapid time frame for action. The American people are just beginning to figure out what the majority may have in mind. We need to give them a chance to react and to speak to us about how they feel about the direction this is taking.”
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What’s a trillion bucks anyhow? This way Americans can continue to stuff their faces, get obese, and then seek the care they need for their chronic diseases compliments of the taxpayers. What a great idea.
Posted by: Huh | June 16, 2009, 5:35 pm 5:35 pm
An estimate of the cost of healthcare at only 1 trillion for parts of it. We all know that the federal government cannot give a realistic estimate of the cost. I would not be surprised if the cost will be 10 trillion in the space of 5 years as everybody dumps their healthcare insurance to ride on the federal healthcare like they have done in Massachussets. Of course medical care in the US will end up like medical care in the UK and Canada.
Posted by: Bill | June 16, 2009, 5:59 pm 5:59 pm
The federal government has never come close to estimating new entitlements. One or one and half trillion over ten years for part of the program probably will equate to one trillion plus a year within five years of implementation. Of course our health care industry will be ruined and the world will not have a place to come to for good health care any longer.
Posted by: Bill | June 16, 2009, 6:05 pm 6:05 pm
Fully paid for out of what? The last I heard, we were borrowing to save our lives. I don’t think we have anything left that is paid for!
This definitely gives me indigestion just reading it.
Posted by: Jon F | June 16, 2009, 6:33 pm 6:33 pm
Healthcare, healthcare, healthcare.
I am very concerned that the President and Democrats in Congress want to socialize medicine in the United States. This would be a big mistake, and I am very opposed to it. Please read the information below–I’ve not heard anyone else bring up this part of the issue, and I’m trying to make sure it gets into the debate.
People often cite Canada, Western Europe, and Australia as having “free”, good health care for their citizens. We could argue about it being “free” or whether it’s as good as current US health care, but here’s my point. Even if it were free and good, we US citizens—every taxpayer—SUBSIDIZE their health care, and we have been for decades.
Here’s what I mean by the subsidy–since the end of World War II the United States has provided a level of defense that has allowed Western Europe to not have to spend as much as they otherwise would on defense. This subsidy allows them to spend government money on health care instead of the level of spending on defense if we weren’t there.
Australia and Canada also know that if anyone attacked them, we would be right there to help them. The United States taxpayer has spent billions and billions of dollars for a defensive safety net for Western Europe, Australia, and Canada.
And I’m not complaining. I believe helping as we have for all these decades has been a worthy expense. But please don’t let people compare Western European, Canadian, or Australian health care to ours; there is no comparison because we don’t get a subsidy.
The countries of Western Europe, Australia, and Canada have personal tax rates that approach 40% for people making just $60000 per year. Just think what that tax rate would be if they had to provide the level of defense they would need if we weren’t around.
Please get this subsidy issue into the debate.
Jim Kaupanger
Elverta, California
Posted by: Jim Kaupanger | June 16, 2009, 8:33 pm 8:33 pm
President Obama and his Democrat Party
allies have indicated in several
statements to the Obama controlled
news media that they will pay for
the Health Care reform by cuts
in Social Security and Medicare
benefits!
In other words they will balance the books on the backs of Senior Citizens,
many of whom are already living
near the poverty line.
What ever happened to “empathy” or
“I feel your pain”?
Posted by: reaganfan | June 16, 2009, 9:02 pm 9:02 pm
It appears that, based on the analysis of the Kennedy committee, to cover all the uninsured needs about three trillion dollars for ten years, which is greater than pres. Obama’s estimate in his Chicago speech by a factor of three. What are the Obama’s economists doing?
Posted by: austin | June 17, 2009, 8:53 am 8:53 am
To the GOP – we know you don’t like the healthcare proposal. You complain you don’t have enough time to read it over. So – don’t vote for it. We don’t care. You don’t have enough voices to stop it now. America might be going to hell in a handbasket but, at least, we just might have better healthcare choices than we do now under the current private healthcare plans.
Posted by: Bob | June 17, 2009, 9:25 am 9:25 am
This whole health care reform push has turned into a total free for all fiasco. We have millions of proposals, lots of different cost estimates, and no one who will agree on much of anything.
President Obama said he would leave all this to the Congress, yet he continues to press for his own ideas. If that isn’t a mixed message, then I don’t know what is!
What I do know is that if we blow it on health care like we did in 1993, the health industry and insurers will be in our face more than ever. In 1993, we called it “Hillary medicine” when the insurance companies started to escalate their reign. That is the last thing we need right now.
I wish the president would lead with specifics or hold to his promise of letting Congress work out the details. You can’t have both and expect anything but chaos.
Posted by: Jon F | June 17, 2009, 5:17 pm 5:17 pm