Notepad

Indeed, CBO offered a rather expansive explanation of the caveats in that review, which was produced hastily to meet Sen. Max Baucus' timing. But the short of it is this:

• CBO based its work on a preliminary description of what Baucus released publicly.
• It didn't review actual legislative language, which it says could "have a significant effect on the analysis."
• The analysis is narrowly focused on the programs in the bill and does not take into account spending by other government agencies or all future administrative costs.

So what do we know about the cost of the health care bills? Mostly, we know the cost floor. It's unlikely that the committees writing the bills intentionally overestimated their costs. We probably have as good a sense as possible of what the revenue provisions would produce, as CBO's cautionary notes tend to deal with the spending side and not the Joint Committee on Taxation's estimates of tax items.

The two analyses also provide a window into which provisions result in neither costs nor savings. That's important if Democrats attempt to use the reconciliation process, a fast-track mechanism for deficit reduction, to avert a filibuster and pass a health care bill with a bare majority of senators rather than 60 or more.

The Senate's Byrd Rule creates points of order against provisions that have either no impact on the deficit or a budgetary effect that is "merely incidental" to the policy they would implement.

As was the case with its review of HR 3200, CBO's estimate of the Baucus bill contains a laundry list of provisions that are estimated to have no effect on the deficit.

Ultimately, the applicability of Byrd Rule proscriptions can be very subjective, but the CBO estimates provide a map of some of the potential roadblocks.

Not so long ago, Democrats were able to frustrate GOP reconciliation plans by using the Byrd Rule to strike four provisions -- including two administration reports -- from a bill cutting close to $40 billion in spending.

The Congressional Research Service's review of that fiscal 2006 reconciliation bill provides an excellent explanation of how the Byrd Rule was used by the minority to knock the majority off track on major legislation (pages 33 and 34).