Today CBO released a letter responding to a request from the Ranking Members of four House committees for additional information about the effects of health insurance coverage specifications reflected in the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, which was released by the House Committee on Ways and Means on July 14, 2009. (For regular readers of our analysis, it’s been a busy weekend.)
CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) released a preliminary analysis of the provisions of this legislation related to health insurance coverage on July 14 and then released a further analysis that took into account the other parts of the legislation on July 17. Among other things, the coverage specifications would establish a mandate for most legal residents to obtain health insurance, significantly expand eligibility for Medicaid, regulate the pricing and terms of private health insurance policies, set up insurance “exchanges” through which certain individuals and families could receive federal subsidies to reduce the cost of purchasing insurance, and offer a “public plan” option similar to Medicare through those exchanges. For reasons outlined in those earlier letters, our analysis to date does not represent a formal or complete cost estimate for the draft legislation.
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?cat=5