Senators Announce Plan to Cut Health Plan Cost Below $1 Trillion

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) announced that he and his colleagues had found a way to keep their health care proposal below $1 trillion over a 10-year period, moving Congress "a bit closer to a deal on legislation to lower costs and provide coverage to nearly 50 million Americans who lack it," reports the Associated Press.

After the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill would cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years, Finance committee members were sent "back to the drawing board" and new deadlines for a completed bill were set, according to the article. "We have options that would enable us to write a $1 trillion bill, fully paid for," said Baucus. He did not detail how the costs would be cut, but said it could include delaying the proposed expansion of Medicaid. Other possible changes could include lowering the cost of subsidies for low-income people who cannot afford insurance on their own and cutting back on the planned rate increases for physicians serving Medicare patients. According to the CBO, the new proposal could cover 97 percent of the population, excluding illegal immigrants.

The Finance Committee had planned to pass a bill before the July 4 recess, but its announcement was still seen as progress "given the setbacks of recent weeks," reports AP. The Finance Committee, which is seen as having the best chance of creating a bipartisan bill, has not resolved "the divisive questions of whether to create a new public plan to compete against private insurers, and what types of requirements employers should face to offer coverage to their workers." According to Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), "There's not a final bill that's agreed to. What there is now is a clear path to having a bill that is paid for."