Kara Rowland
Washington Times
2/22/2010
President Obama said he would put out a full bill ahead of Thursday’s highly touted bipartisan health summit, but what he released on Monday is so bare-bones that the Congressional Budget Office said there’s not even enough detail to start working on a cost estimate.
The administration did not post any bill text on the White House Web site, instead offering a detailed outline of what the legislation would do.
The nonpartisan CBO, which provides the official cost numbers on legislative proposals, said it has received several requests to review Mr. Obama’s blueprint — released three days ahead of the bipartisan summit — but could not do so until the White House provides more details to its broad outlines.
“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,” the CBO said in a blog post Monday.
“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.”
The article continues at the Washington Times.
