Last night the Harry Reid unveiled the Senate health care reform bill, called The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The whole bill can be read here (warning PDF) and a 2-page summary can be read at this link (PDF).
The health care bill–which includes an opt-out public option–will require $849 billion over 10 years in new spending, to be paid for with cuts to Medicare, while reducing the deficit by $127 billion.
In that time it will extend coverage to 31 million Americans–94 percent of citizens will be covered by 2019.
Over the second 10 years, CBO projects even greater cost savings–up to $650 billion, with the caveat that after 10 years, their analyses become highly uncertain.
That price tag should reassure the faux fiscal hawks (who never voted no on war funding which is apparently free) – if the price tag was really what they’re worried about. It still contains the opt-out public option so that means that Reid will have to deal with in some way the Senate a#%hole caucus: Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson and Blance Lincoln. Reconciliation is still on the table:
In response to a question from TPMDC Nelson told reporters that, at a meeting this afternoon with Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Reid “talked about process, procedure, discussion about reconciliation and a whole host of issues of that sort.”
“Nobody’s really jumping up and down to push for reconciliation,” Nelson said, “he’s not threatening that, but anybody can conclude that if you don’t move something on to the floor, that is one of the possibilities.”
Nelson said he has still not committed to vote for even the first procedural vote, but in a sign that he’s leaning toward bringing a bill to the floor, he emphasized his view that the floor debate is a chance to improve the legislation. “I wanted to make it clear that that is, unlike some are suggesting, is not the vote…it’s a motion to enter into the debate and possible amendments and improvements of the legislation” Nelson said. “The vote is the second cloture vote, and that is the cloture on a motion to cease debate, and I wanted that clear, because I’ve already begun to see people out there say, ‘oh no, no, if you vote [to take it up] you’ve voted for health care.”
At this point I don’t really see the difference between having the Senate Democratic a#%hole caucus in those Senate seats and having Republicans in those seats and I’ll bet that the voters in their home states think the same thing. IMO, if they vote to kill health care reform I think they’re also killing their careers.