If you haven't heard or seen it yet, President Obama's health care plan was posted on the White House website this morning. If you'd like to read it, click here. The plan was released three days ahead of the president's meeting with Democratic and Republican lawmakers at Blair House.
The plan marks the president's most detailed proposal since taking office and making health care reform his top domestic agenda. Now that the focus has shifted back to job creation, the White House is demanding an up or down vote on the legislation. However, it is doubtful that Democrats will find enough votes to pass it.
The bill uses the same language used in the Senate's health care bill on abortion funding, which pro-life Democrats in the House have said is unacceptable.
The all important Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the White House hasn't released enough information about the plan for the office to score it, or analyze its cost and effectiveness so it's doubtful lawmakers will get that information before Thursday's bipartisan summit.
Here's what was posted on the CBO Director's blog.
This morning the Obama Administration released a description of its health care proposal, and CBO has already received several requests to provide a cost estimate for that proposal. We had not previously received the proposal, and we have just begun the process of reviewing it—a process that will take some time, given the complexity of the issues involved. Although the proposal reflects many elements that were included in the health care bills passed by the House and the Senate last year, it modifies many of those elements and also includes new ones. Moreover, preparing a cost estimate requires very detailed specifications of numerous provisions, and the materials that were released this morning do not provide sufficient detail on all of the provisions. Therefore, CBO cannot provide a cost estimate for the proposal without additional detail, and, even if such detail were provided, analyzing the proposal would be a time-consuming process that could not be completed this week.