In two days of debate on the Senate floor about the motion to move ahead with the major health care legislation, Democrats and Republicans fired volley after volley of contradictory claims about the proposed bill. Here are some examples, with analysis.


How many people are projected to gain health benefits?

Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. — "This bill will provide coverage for more than 94 percent of Americans — 98 percent when accounting for the elderly population."

Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md. — "The legislation that is being brought forward by our vote later today will reduce the number of uninsured by 31 million."

Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo. — "The bill still leaves 24 million Americans without insurance."

Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. — "They are going to provide methods and additional funding and provide millions of people with insurance who didn't have it before, although 24 million will remain uninsured."

New York Times analysis — According to the Congressional Budget Office, there will be roughly 50 million people without health insurance in the United States in 2010, with the number rising to 54 million by 2019, under current law. The budget office says the Senate bill would reduce the number of uninsured to 24 million by 2019, in effect providing coverage to 31 million. The budget office says the Senate bill would cover 92 percent of non-elderly Americans, 94 percent if illegal immigrants were excluded. Including Americans 65 and older, who are generally covered by Medicare, the 94 percent figure rises to 98 percent, but that increase is of course not attributable to the bill.



What will it cost; will it reduce or add to future federal deficits?

Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. — "The bill we are moving to consider will cost $2.5 trillion once fully implemented; nearly three times the official CBO score of $848 billion. The Democrats are playing a shell game to hide the true cost of this legislation."

Judd Gregg, R-N.H. — "When all this new spending occurs, this bill will cost $2.5 trillion over that 10-year period — $2.5 trillion. That is the real cost of this bill."

Robert Menendez, D-N.J. — "This bill actually cuts the deficit by $130 billion in the first 10 years and $650 billion in the second 10 years."

New York Times analysis — The Democrats rely on the Congressional Budget Office projections showing the gross coverage costs of insurance provisions in the bill to be $848 billion over 10 years, from 2010 to 2019, with the costs more than offset by new taxes and fees and reduced government spending, particularly a slowdown in the growth of Medicare, so the bill would reduce federal deficits over that time period by $130 billion.

The Republicans note that the major provisions of the bill, such as the expansion of Medicaid and subsidies to help people buy insurance, would not take effect until 2014. So they calculate the total cost of the bill over 10 years, from 2014 to 2023, to come up with the $2.5 trillion figure.

The budget office has projected that the Senate bill would continue to reduce future deficits beyond 2019, but that is too far off to estimate precisely. Senate Republicans say that it is unlikely that Congress would follow through on many of the cost-saving measures included in the bill and that the projections are therefore misleading. Democrats say the budget office does not give them any credit for many provisions, such as new prevention and wellness programs that they believe will potentially save billions of dollars but that cannot be attributed directly to the budget.



Will a government-run plan, or public option, offer an additional choice or lead to government takeover of the health care system?

David Vitter, R-La. — "The government option — if this bill passed or anything similar to it passed — would be the dominant option overnight and, perhaps, the only option in a few years."

Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo. — "The government-run plan will have higher premiums, and the CBO said it will drive up the cost of health care."

Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt. — "A public option would give consumers more choices to select affordable and quality health insurance plans, while helping to drive down overall medical costs through real competition in the health insurance market."

Mary L. Landrieu, D-La. — "I remain concerned that the current version of the public option included in this bill could shift significant risks to taxpayers over time unnecessarily."

New York Times analysis — The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 3 million to 4 million people would enroll in the public plan, out of more than 200 million non-elderly Americans who would have insurance.

The budget office estimates that premiums charged by the public plan would be "somewhat higher" than premiums charged by private plans. Although the budget office projects that the public plan would have lower administrative costs, it also projects that the people with greater medical needs would be more likely to enroll in the public plan and that the public plan would be less aggressive in limiting services.

Republicans can say the public plan would charge higher premiums, but that undermines their argument that the public plan would drive private insurers out of business. The projections by the budget office that relatively few people would choose the public plan suggest that it would not be as useful as some Democrats claim in increasing competition and lowering health care costs.

— More, STLtoday.com/TheWire/Health care