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Letter to the Honorable Edward M. Kennedy 1 (June 2009)

handle is hein.congrec/cbo9372 and id is 1 raw text is: CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director U.S. Congress Washington, DC 20515 June 15, 2009 Honorable Edward M. Kennedy Chairman Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have completed a preliminary analysis of the major provisions related to health insurance coverage that are contained in title I of draft legislation called the Affordable Health Choices Act, which was released by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) on June 9, 2009. Among other things, that draft legislation would establish insurance exchanges (called gateways) through which individuals and families could purchase coverage and would provide federal subsidies to substantially reduce the cost of that coverage for some enrollees. The attached table summarizes our preliminary assessment of the proposal's budgetary effects and its likely impact on insurance coverage. According to that assessment, enacting the proposal would result in a net increase in federal budget deficits of about $1.0 trillion over the 2010-2019 period. Once the proposal was fully implemented, about 39 million individuals would obtain coverage through the new insurance exchanges. At the same time, the number of people who had coverage through an employer would decline by about 15 million (or roughly 10 percent), and coverage from other sources would fall by about 8 million, so the net decrease in the number of people uninsured would be about 16 million. It is important to note, however, that those figures do not represent a formal or complete cost estimate for the draft legislation, for reasons outlined below. Moreover, because expanded eligibility for the Medicaid program may be added at a later date, those figures are not likely to represent the impact that more comprehensive proposals-which might include a www.cbo.gov

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