On news of the score from the CBO on the Senate version of ObamaCare I wrote:

As I've noted in posts on previous scores, the CBO always adds that each score is "subject to substantial uncertainty" because these estimates are almost always inaccurate.

This morning, thanks to Jamie Dupree, I got a chance to read the CBO's letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and there it was on page 2 (emphasis mine):

According to CBO and JCT’s assessment, enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $130 billion over the 2010–2019 period). In the subsequent decade, the collective effect of its provisions would probably be small reductions in federal budget deficits if all of the provisions continued to be fully implemented. Those estimates are subject to substantial uncertainty.

Not only that, but this isn't even a score of the bill, which is what we were all told yesterday. The letter says that the CBO "has not completed an estimate of all of the legislation’s potential impact on spending that would be subject to future appropriation action."

While we're being told that the cost is $849 billion, it's simply not true for two reasons. The first is because, as already noted, the CBO has not fully measured the impact on the budget.

The second reason, as pointed out by Michael Cannon, are the private sector costs:

[The] $848 billion only accounts for part of the federal government’s share of the tab.  There is other new federal spending.  My read is that the CBO estimates $998 billion of total new federal spending — though I’ll be waiting for former CBO director Donald Marron to provide a more authoritative tally.

And then there are costs that Reid and his comrades have pushed off the federal budget.  For example, the $25 billion unfunded mandate that Reid would impose on states.  Total so far: just over $1 trillion.

But the biggest hidden cost is that of the private-sector mandates.  In both the Clinton health plan and the Massachusetts health plan, the private-sector mandates –- the legal requirements that individuals and employers purchase health insurance –- accounted for 60 percent of total costs.  That suggests that if the Reid bill’s cost to federal and state governments is $1 trillion, then the total cost is probably $2.5 trillion, and Harry Reid — like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — is hiding $1.5 trillion of the cost of his bill.

Do not buy into the myth of deficit reduction or cost savings that your being sold. The private sector and state mandates, as well as the intervention on the federal level are going to increase your health care costs.