New estimate puts health care price tag at $611 billion

WASHINGTON (CNN) - A health care reform bill that includes a public insurance plan and requires most employers to pay for workers' coverage would cost $611 billion over 10 years, far less than previous estimates, according to a new analysis from Congress.

The figure is hundreds of billions of dollars less than two June estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, including one that calculated the cost of a less-comprehensive program at $1.6 trillion over the same period. But the new CBO analysis does not include the cost of a proposed expansion of the federally funded Medicaid system for low-income families - a proposal expected to add several hundred billion to the tab.

The Democratic leaders of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee - one of two committees working on a planned overhaul - said the latest proposal "virtually eliminates the dropping of currently covered employees from employer-sponsored health plans."

"In addition, our bill, combined with the work being done by our colleagues in the Finance Committee, will dramatically reduce the number of uninsured - fully 97 percent of Americans will have coverage, a major achievement," Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, and Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, said in a letter to members of the health committee.

An earlier CBO report put the 10-year cost of a less comprehensive bill from the health committee at about $1 trillion. And a mid-June report on Finance Committee proposals weighed in at $1.6 trillion.