The CBO has completed its preliminary analysis of the SFC bill, and it still comes in under the White House's $900 billion threshhold.
According to CBO and JCT’s assessment, enacting the Chairman’s mark, as amended, would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $81 billion over the 2010–2019 period (see Table 1). The estimate includes a projected net cost of $518 billion over 10 years for the proposed expansions in insurance coverage. That net cost itself reflects a gross total of $829 billion in credits and subsidies provided through the exchanges, increased net outlays for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and tax credits for small employers; those costs are partly offset by $201 billion in revenues from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans and $110 billion in net savings from other sources. The net cost of the coverage expansions would be more than offset by the combination of other spending changes that CBO estimates would save $404 billion over the 10 years and other provisions that JCT and CBO estimate would increase federal revenues by $196 billion over the same period.
However, the bill is far from providing universal access to coverage:
By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured would be reduced by about 29 million, leaving about 25 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants). Under the proposal, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent currently to about 94 percent.
It also "estimates that state spending on Medicaid would increase by about $33 billion over the 2010–2019 period as a result of the specifications affecting coverage. That estimate reflects states’ flexibility to make programmatic and other budgetary changes to Medicaid and CHIP." That might be a rather steep estimate for states to come up with beginning next year, given the fact that dozens of states are in fiscal crisis now, and increasing unemployment is compounding the strain on state budgets.
Ezra finds other not so great news about the scoring:
In the aggregate, the Senate finance bill reduces the deficit. But there are a couple individual years when it increases it. The CBO thus estimates that "the failsafe provisions would require a reduction in exchange subsidies averaging about 15 percent during the years 2015 through 2018." That's a very bad thing, particularly in the first years of the plan. It means that, with no warning, subsidies will be cut by 15 percent, and insurance that families were able to afford the year before will become totally unaffordable. That needs to be changed.
That basically leaves status quo--unpredictability for families in their insurance coverage and it's affordability.
The Wonk Room has more on where savings were found between the previously scored Baucus bill, pre-markup, and the bill as it stands now.
Update: Here's this on Conrad's pet project, the public option "alternative" for Baucus:
The proposed co-ops had very little effect on the estimates of total enrollment in the exchanges or federal costs because, as they are described in the specifications, they seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country or to noticeably affect federal subsidy payments. As a result, CBO estimates that of the $6 billion in federal funds that would be made available, about $3 billion would be spent over the 2010–2019 period.