Senate Finance: under $1T? Check! Paid for? Check! Details? Not yet!

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports: We’ve had a bit of a development in the bipartisan negotiations going on behind closed doors among 7 members of the Senate Finance Committee. Moderate Democrats seem to think they’ve found ways to keep health care reform from costing more than $1 trillion and also how to pay for that expense and they say CBO has scored their ideas and agrees with the cost. While we mere reporters have seen no details as yet, the Democrats on the Finance Committee are excited to have a friendly CBO score.  ”The very important news here is we now have options that will get us to a trillion dollars, paid for, and do it in a way in which you still have full coverage for the country. And that leaves a lot of decisions to be made. And their tough decisions. You’ve still got to decide which one of these optional paths should be chosen,” said Sen. Kent Conrad, the Chairman of the Budget Committee, and a chief bipartisan negotiator. While Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus is beaming about the development, it’s important to remember that all this is notional at the moment. The three Republicans working with Democrats on the committee are to be presented with a paper version of the proposal, supposedly scored by CBO, at a closed door meeting later today. “I want to caution everybody,” said Baucus after a meeting with the Republicans earlier today. “We’re only going to have a final agreement or mark when its ready. And I don’t want to imply by any stretch of the imagination that we will have that today. But the CBO numbers were very encouraging.” Republicans emerging from Baucus’ office this morning were more circumspect, reserving judgment until they have seen the draft document and CBO’s scoring of it later today. Half of the money would come from a formula  of revenue-raising measures, according to Sen. Olympia Snow, who was briefed by Democrats on the Finance Committee on the broad strokes of the plan, although she had not yet seen specifics. One would be capping the tax exempt level of health care benefits. Another would be forcing larger companies that do not provide benefits to pay a portion of the cost of insuring lower-income employees. She said this would be less than a controversial mandate for all employers to either pay for benefits or contribute to a fund. The other half would come from cost savings – some of which would be scaling back who would get government subsidies for health care, perhaps to people lower than 300 percent of the poverty level. Another could be lowering the already low payment scale for doctors who treat people on Medicaid, all of which would be controversial for more liberal Democrats. This is only one step in the long hard marathon for health care reform legislation. Even if the moderate Finance Committee Democrats can convince the three Republicans that might consider voting for health care reform, they would still then have to convince liberal Democrats, many of whom want a public insurance option. Conrad has proposed a system of private, but non-profit co-ops instead of a government run option. And details on his proposal and the public option have yet to emerge. So if this CBO score that says health care reform as envisioned by the moderates on the Finance Committee can happen without raising the deficit is a development, it is an incremental one.