Don't Mess With Taxes

You heard right. The Congressional Budget Office says that even with an $829 billion price tag, the Senate Finance Committee health plan would reduce the federal budget deficit by $81 billion over 10 years.

In a 27-page analysis released this afternoon, the nonpartisan budget group said the proposal, developed by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), would expand coverage to 29 million more Americans by 2019 by dramatically expanding Medicaid coverage for the poor and by subsidizing private insurance for low- and middle-income Americans.

The overall reform costs would be more than offset by reducing spending on Medicare and other federal health programs by about $400 billion over the next decade. Also helping foot the bill would be fees on insurance companies, drug makers and medical device manufacturers. The argument is that those groups would be making more money on the additional customers, so they can afford to pay the fees.

Feel free to electronically thumb through the CBO report.

Or you can check out Tax Policy Blog, which has distilled the data into a collection of easy-to-read tables. Take special note of the last one, which shows that over a decade, $196 billion would be raised by "revenue increases elsewhere," or, as the CBO document refers to it, "other provisions affecting revenues."

Is it just me, or does Congress using the catchall term "Other" in creating any legislation, and particularly tax legislation, seem like a really bad idea?

Related posts:

• Cost of not reforming health care
• Senate health care, take two
• The case for taxing healthcare benefits