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Add-ons make cost of health bill $1.2 trillion
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Published: November 3, 2009
WASHINGTON - The health-care bill headed for a vote in the House this week costs $1.2 trillion or more over 10 years, according to numerous Democratic officials and figures contained in an analysis by congressional budget experts, far higher than the $900 billion cited by President Obama as a price tag for his reform plan.
Though the Congressional Budget Office has put the cost of expanding coverage in the legislation at about $1 trillion, Democrats added billions more on higher spending for public health, a reinsurance program to hold down retiree health costs, payments for preventive services and more.
Many of the additions are designed to improve benefits or ease access to coverage in government programs. The officials who provided overall cost estimates did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has referred repeatedly to the bill's net cost of $894 billion over 10 years for coverage.
Asked about the higher estimate, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said that the legislation not only insures 36 million more Americans, it provides critical health insurance reform in a way that is fiscally sound.
"It will not add one dime to the deficit. In fact, the CBO said last week that it will reduce the deficit both in the first 10 years and in the second 10 years," Daly said.
Republicans put the cost of the bill at nearly $1.3 trillion.
"Our goal is to make it as difficult as possible for" Democrats to pass it, House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a news conference. "We believe it is the wrong prescription."
Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina said that people have more to fear from Democratic health-care legislation than from terrorists.
"I believe that the greatest fear that we all should have ... to our freedom comes from this room, this very room, and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax-increase bill masquerading as a health-care bill," Foxx, who represents the Fifth District, said in a speech on the House floor. "I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country."
Foxx argues that the legislation is scary because she said it would raise taxes, increase the power of federal bureaucrats and force people to buy government-mandated coverage -- among other things.
Whatever the final cost of legislation, the calendar is working increasingly against the White House and Democrats. While a House vote is possible late this week, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, D-Nev., may not be able to begin debate on the issue until the week before Thanksgiving. Additionally, the Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has hinted at efforts to extend the debate for weeks if not months, a timetable that could extend into 2010.
One casualty of the time crunch and threatened Republican delaying tactics may be formal House-Senate negotiations on a final compromise. An alternative is a less formal hurry-up final negotiation involving the White House and senior Democrats.
Pelosi and her lieutenants worked on last-minute changes in the legislation to ease concerns among opponents of abortion and a contentious provision relating to illegal immigrants. Conservative Democrats have expressed concern about the cost of the bill, and an evening closed-door meeting gave Pelosi and her lieutenants their first chance to hear their response.
The bill includes an option for a government-run health plan.
The leadership can afford more than two dozen defections and still be assured of the votes to prevail on the bill, one of the most sweeping measures in recent years.
One day after announcing that Republicans would have an alternative, Boehner offered few details. He said it would omit one of the central provisions in Democratic bills -- a ban on the insurance industry's practice of denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. Instead, he said the Republicans would encourage creation of insurance pools for high-risk individuals and take other steps to ease their access to coverage.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the third-ranking leader, said that Democrats looked at their bill as a way to advance universal coverage. In contrast, he said, Republicans "believe the real issue back home is cost" of insurance, and said their alternative would be designed to tackle it.
Democrats have made elimination of the industry's practice a linchpin of their drive to overhaul the health-care system. The industry has said it would not fight the change, and an accompanying restriction on its ability to charge higher premiums for certain groups, as the legislation includes a requirement for individuals to purchase insurance. Lacking that, the industry says millions of relatively healthy individuals would refuse to pay for coverage until they became sick, and the cost of premiums would rise sharply for everyone else.
Republicans oppose any government requirements for individuals to purchase insurance or for businesses to provide coverage.
Yesterday was not the first time that Foxx has made news with her comments during the health-care debate.
In July, she caused a stir when she said that a Republican proposal "is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government."
The statement reflected Foxx's wish to keep the current House health-care bill free of tax money for end-of-life counseling and abortion, spokesman Aaron Groen said at the time.
The Democratic National Committee denounced Foxx's comments from yesterday.
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