CBO: House Drafts of Health Bill Within Obama's Spending Limit

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/16/AR2009101603602.html?wprss=rss_business

Preliminary estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show that House leaders are within striking distance of drafting a health overhaul that fits within President Obama's $900 billion limit, but the new numbers have done little to unite the chamber's Democrats around a legislative plan.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has been working for weeks to smooth over disputes about the final shape of the package while slicing billions of dollars from the approximately $1.2 trillion bill three House panels approved in July. As part of that process, Pelosi asked the CBO to analyze competing versions of a slimmed-down package that would extend health coverage to millions of Americans.

The report, delivered privately this week to House leaders, predicts that one proposal, which would create the government-run insurance plan preferred by liberals, would cost around $905 billion over the next decade. An option costing $859 billion would both create a government-run insurance plan along the lines preferred by rural moderates and more dramatically expand Medicaid, the government health plan for the poor that is funded partly by the states.

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said the numbers confirm "that the coverage provisions of the House bill will be under $900 billion and we will have a public option." He said, though, that "no final policy decisions have been made on how to proceed." House leaders do not expect to vote on health care until next month.

Or are they using his on an infinite, endless occupation? Hopefully, the later, and the US can actually provide as much health care for their citizens as they provide bullets for Afghanis.