The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued their report on the budgetary impact of the major health care form bills recently passed by the House of Representatives. They estimate that if the two bills under consideration are enacted together that they will reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion over the course of the next ten years.
The CBO wrote their report assuming that both H.R. 4872, the Reconciliation Act of 2010 (RA) would be enacted alongside the already passed Senate bill H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
It appears that if PPACA is passed without the amendments that are contained in RA that the budget deficit reduction would be about $20 billion less over the next 10 years. The difference between the two bills, according to the CBO, is that the RA decreases direct budgetary spending by $20 billion dollars more than PPACA; for a total of $85 billion worth of direct savings.
The longer-term projections indicate that from 2020 to 2029, the size of the federal budget deficit would be reduced anywhere from one-quarter percent to one-half percent of the gross domestic product. These estimates are less precise given the long time frame and the inability to predict legislative actions and economic circumstances that far into the future.
Click here to access the full CBO report, http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11355/hr4872.pdf
