The CBO score is in on the changes made by Reid to the HCR Bill (the Manager's Amendment). Here are some highlights
$132 Billion reduction in the budget deficit over the first 10 years. Reid managed to get an extra $2 billion in net deficit reduction even with the public option being removed. This appears to have been done by removing provisions to increase reimbursement rates to Doctors, increasing payroll taxes on higher income families (I assume this is the Medicare tax), and increasing penalties for the uninsured.
http://www.cbo.gov/...
There is also an increase in tax credits for small business. Overall, Reid had to make up for the savings shortfall when he removed Public Option by cutting proposed reimbursements to Doctors, increasing payroll taxes and increasing penalties for those who do not obtain insurance.
Subsidies to people to purchase insurance on the national exchange from 133% to 400% of the poverty level.
Nonelderly people below 133% of poverty are eligible for Medicaid. 31 million previously uninsured non-elderly will have insurance by the time the bill is fully implemented. 25 million would remain uninsured, one-third of whom will be undocumented immigrants. A quote from the report:
....Those costs would be partly offset by receipts or savings, totaling $257 billion over the 10-year budget window, from four sources: net revenues from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans, totaling $149 billion; penalty payments by uninsured individuals, which would amount to $15 billion; penalty payments by employers whose workers received subsidies via the exchanges, which would total $28 billion; and other budgetary effects, mostly on tax revenues, associated with the expansion of federally subsidized insurance, which would reduce deficits by $65 billion.
Those are some of the highlights.
The thing that strikes me is that Reid has done some pretty impressive work to be able to make changes and maintain the budget targets. Another thing that stands out is the value of even a meager public option. The absence of public option required substantial changes in revenue increasing provisions in order to make up the short fall. This seems to me to be tied to the fact that the cost of health care is simply higher when only private companies provide it than if there is a public-private competition.
...Now on to passage, conference, final passage and signing by the President.