Senate Finance Committee keeps eye on healthcare target price

As the Senate Finance Committee begins reworking Sen. Max Baucus' healthcare bill, the focus will be on keeping the final price tag below $900 billion—a target considered crucial to winning over moderate Democratic votes. But the cost estimates in the proposal—like those attached to many of the 500-plus amendments lined up for committee consideration—involve budgetary sleights-of-hand designed primarily to serve political ends, according to the Los Angeles Times.