"The CBO report specifically confirms that the long-term effect of the President's plan will be to reduce the Federal deficit. While there are differences between the OMB estimates and the CBO estimates, there is broad and welcome agreement by both budget agencies that the President's plan can be paid for by savings in the current system. The differences between the estimates are small, as the CBO analysis itself states. With further refinements in the cost data, the differences will be reduced. Only minor adjustments are needed in the program to assure that there is no increase in the deficit, even in the early years of the program. For example, one significant difference between the OMB and CBO is the CBO believes employers will be able to manipulate the system to achieve greater savings than they are entitled to. By improving the enforcement mechanisms in the bill, that gamesmanship can be reduced or eliminated. On the technical issue of budget treatment, CBO has been careful to describe the premium payments as receipts, not taxes. In asserting that these premiums should be part of the Federal budget, I believe that CBO is wrong. Premiums under the Health Security Act are paid to private insurance companies, not to the Federal Government. Never before has money not paid to the Government and not spent by the Government been included in the budget."