"Just the facts ma'am" post for a very busy day: the Congressional Budget Office director says–
CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have just issued a preliminary analysis of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, as introduced on October 29, 2009. Among other things, H.R. 3962 would establish a mandate for most legal residents of the United States to obtain health insurance; set up insurance “exchanges” through which certain individuals and families could receive federal subsidies to substantially reduce the cost of purchasing that coverage; significantly expand eligibility for Medicaid; substantially reduce the growth of Medicare’s payment rates for most services (relative to the growth rates projected under current law); impose an income tax surcharge on high-income individuals; and make various other changes to the federal tax code, Medicaid, Medicare, and other programs.
According to CBO and JCT’s assessment, enacting H.R. 3962 would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $104 billion over the 2010–2019 period. In the subsequent decade, the collective effect of its provisions would probably be slight reductions in federal budget deficits. Those estimates are all subject to substantial uncertainty.
The whole entry the director penned is well worth a read.
