OMG, they actually delivered a plan!

The Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday that an alternative
health care bill put forward by House Republicans would have little
impact in extending health benefits to the roughly 30 million
uninsured Americans, but would reduce average insurance premium costs
for people who have coverage.

The Republican bill, which has no chance of passage, would extend
insurance coverage to about 3 million people by 2019, and would leave
about 52 million people uninsured, the budget office said, meaning the
proportion of non-elderly Americans with coverage would remain about
the same as now, at roughly 83 percent.

The budget office has said that the Democrats’ health care proposal
would extend coverage to 36 million people, meaning that 96 percent of
legal residents would have health benefits. The Democrats’ bill would
cost $1.1 trillion, with the costs more than covered by revenues from
new taxes or cuts in government spending, particularly on Medicare.

House Republicans, including their leader, Representative John A.
Boehner of Ohio, have said that they did not intend for their
legislation to expand insurance coverage, because they viewed that
goal as unaffordable. Instead, they said the bill was tailored
narrowly to reduce costs.

According to the report by nonpartisan budget office, the Republican
bill would reduce future federal deficits by $68 billion over 10
years, compared to a reduction of $104 billion by the House Democrats’
legislation.

The findings by the budget office mostly seemed to confirm assertions
by Democrats that the Republican bill, offered as an amendment to the
Democrats’ measure, would do little to change the status quo.

But Republicans will certainly find aspects of the cost analysis to
brag about. The budget office predicted savings for the federal
government of $41 billion over 10 years as a result of provisions to
limit costs related to medical malpractice lawsuits.

In addition, many Republicans have said the country cannot afford a
hugely expensive health care bill at a time of staggering federal
deficits, and the total cost of insurance provisions in the Republican
bill would be just $61 billion compared to $1.1 trillion for the
Democrats’ bill.

The budget office also said that the Republican bill would reduce
average insurance premiums, though the budget office cautioned that
its calculations in that regard were subject to a high degree of
uncertainty.

The budget office said that in the Republican plan, premiums would be
reduced the most for people who buy insurance in the individual or
small-group market, but that people who get large-group insurance
through their employers would also see some reduction in cost. “The
combination of provisions included in the amendment would reduce
average private health insurance premiums per enrollee in the United
States relative to what they would be under current law,” the budget
office said.

It said premiums would be cut by 7 percent to 10 percent in the small
group market; by 5 percent to 8 percent in the individual market; and
by up to 3 percent in the large group market, which is where 80
percent of Americans get their coverage.

The budget office carefully hedged its findings, writing: “Some
provisions of the legislation would tend to decrease the premiums paid
by all insurance enrollees, while other provisions would tend to
increase the premiums paid by less healthy enrollees or would tend to
increase the premiums paid by enrollees in some states relative to
enrollees in other states. As a result, some individuals and families
within each market would see reductions in premiums that would be
larger or smaller than the estimated average reductions, and some
people would see increases. ? The estimates of changes in average
premiums are very preliminary and are subject to an unusually high
degree of uncertainty.”

Republicans hailed the budget office findings as evidence that they
had produced a superior bill, while Democrats ridiculed the same
findings as evidence that the Republican bill would accomplish
virtually nothing.

“Across the country the American people are calling on Washington to
pass responsible reform that will lower health care costs,”
Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 House Republican said
in a statement late Wednesday. “Yesterday, House Republicans answered
that call by putting forward common-sense health care legislation that
reduces the deficit, lowers premiums, and ensures coverage for those
with pre-existing conditions.”

But Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, chairman of
the Education and Labor Committee and one of the main architects of
the Democrats’ bill, said the Republicans had come up short.

“Tonight CBO confirmed that the Republicans’ only solution for health
reform is to preserve the status quo,” Mr. Miller said in a statement.
“It will leave 52 million Americans literally out in the cold, does
nothing to help low-income and middle-class families afford quality
health care, and protects insurance companies’ power to deny claims
and stand between patients and their doctors.”