The Real Price of the Senate Health Bill
Taxes start going up now, Medicare cuts begin after next fall's election, and spending for subsidies commences in five years. The price tag is not the first decade's announced $871 billion cost: It is $2.4 trillion. That's the cost of the tax credits in insurance exchanges, and the additional Medicaid costs the reform generates, over the first 10 years it's fully up and running, according to Congressional Budget Office numbers compiled by Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee.
Mr. Reid greased a Christmas Eve Senate passage of his bill, but he did so in a way that taints the product. It will hinder the Obama administration's efforts to fashion a House-Senate conference bill, as well as that 40-year majority Democrats once thought was within their grasp.
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