Analysis Sees Baucus Health Bill Meeting Obama’s Cost and Deficit Targets

By David M. Herszenhorn AND Robert Pear
NYT

The widely awaited budget analysis of a pending Senate health care bill indicates that the legislation would meet President Obama’s cost target and would reduce future federal deficits by a deeper amount than previously projected.

The bill’s chief architect, Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, hailed the cost analysis, which was released Wednesday afternoon by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The budget office analyzed the bill after it was amended during seven days of debate. Its newly projected cost — $829 billion over 10 years — was up from a previous estimate of $774 billion. But it is now seen as reducing federal deficits by $81 billion, up from an earlier project deficit of $49 billion over the same 10-year period.

That would seem to be good news for Democrats and the White House. President Obama has insisted that the health care bill not add to the deficit and that the total price tag be held to about $900 billion.

(Original here.)