The House health reform bill would do a better job of reducing the deficit than previously thought, congressional actuaries concluded in a revised estimate of the bill.
The Congressional Budget Office in reanalyzing the Affordable Health Care for America Act corrected a mistake it made in its earlier assessment of the bill's long-term-care insurance provision. Previously, the CBO and Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that changes in direct spending and revenue from enacting the House bill would yield a net reduction in the federal budget deficit of $109 billion over 10 years.
That original analysis, however, did not reflect the inclusion of nonworking spouses in this long-term-care insurance benefit. In addition, the monthly premiums for this benefit had been underestimated, the CBO explained.
To reflect these changes, the CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation now estimate that the legislation would yield a net reduction in the deficit of $138 billion over a 10-year period.
In
further analysis of the Senate reform legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the CBO projected that Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund might have a few more years to live, if the bill were enacted.
The trust fund is scheduled to expire by 2017, according to current estimates. If the Senate bill were to become law, however, the fund would experience a positive balance of about $120 billion at the end of fiscal 2019—though it would eventually be exhausted a few years after that.
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