CBO: GOP health bill costs less, does less

The Congressional Budget Office says a Republican alternative to the health care overhaul would cost substantially less but do almost nothing to reduce the number of uninsured Americans.

The proposal was offered as a substitute amendment to the H.R. 3962 , the Democratic bill to overhaul the health care system which is estimated to cost about $1.1 trillion over 10 years, Alex Wayne reports.

The CBO estimates the GOP bill would cost only $61 billion in that same time frame, but it would leave the number of Americans with health insurance at about 83 percent, roughly the same as today.

By contrast, the Democratic bill would lead to insurance coverage for about 96 percent of the nation's legal population, the CBO said.

Republicans said their bill was more focused on cost.

— Ryan Teague Beckwith, Congress.org

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