Blog - No CBO Score Today

Before Senate Democrats can bring their health care bill to the floor for a debate, they need an official budget “score” from the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO will tell them how much the bill is expected to cost, how much revenue it’s expected to bring in, how many people it’s expected to cover, and more.

Reports all week have indicated the score would be out today, setting up a first vote on a motion to proceed to debate of the bill on Tuesday. But the report isn’t quite ready to be released and probably won’t be ready until some time next week, TPM reports. Because Democrts want to have their bill and CBO score online for at least 72 hours before the first vote, that likely pushes the Senate health care debate back a whole week.

UPDATE:Ezra Klein adds a little more detail to why there’s no CBO score coming out today:

The proposal Reid’s office sent to the CBO did not come in beneath the $900 billion limit, so the bill is being tweaked and trimmed until CBO gives Reid the answer he’s looking for. There’s nothing particularly strange about this process, but it means that the proposal that Reid’s office thought struck a decent balance between cost and generosity will now become a bit less affordable for individuals in order to cost the government a bit less money.