CBO Assessment of House Bill

House releases its reform bill today, here is the CBO assessment of it. Haven't looked at it or the bill closely.....spent most of the day driving to Charlottesville, Va. and giving a lecture. But, big picture is covers 36 Million uninsured (96% cover of legal residents), has total outlays of just under $900 Billion, reduces deficit by $104 Billion, financing via cuts to planned Medicare funding of around $400 Billion, and income tax increase for those with incomes of $500,000 for individuals and $1Million for couples. Has public option (no opt out) but doesn't use Medicare payment rates....has full negotiation of rates. Also includes the CLASS act provisions which are a long term care plan that comes from Senate HELP bill.

Here is full text of bill if you are bored.....weekend reading.

This will be a fairly weak public option....lots of fighting about it, but it is not going to be that consequential I don't think. CBO says that 6 Million folks will sign up....out of 307 Million Americans....not exactly a crushing defeat of the private insurance industry.

CBO says this about house public option.

Roughly one-fifth of the people purchasing coverage through the exchanges would enroll in the public plan, meaning that total enrollment in that plan would be about 6 million.

That estimate of enrollment reflects CBO’s assessment that a public plan paying negotiated rates would attract a broad network of providers but would typically have premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges. The rates the public plan pays to providers would, on average, probably be comparable to the rates paid by private insurers participating in the exchanges. The public plan would have lower administrative costs than those private plans but would probably engage in less management of utilization by its enrollees and attract a less healthy pool of enrollees. (The effects of that “adverse selection” on the public plan’s premiums would be only partially offset by the “risk adjustment” procedures that would apply to all plans operating in the exchanges.)