BAIER: It was the scoring everybody was waiting for. The Senate Finance Committee bill, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the cost of Baucus bill, $829 billion over ten years. By the year 2019, CBO says 94 percent of the American people would be covered, leaving about 23 million still uninsured. The federal deficit would decrease by $81 billion over the decade, Medicare would face cuts of $404 billion including $133 billion for Medicare Advantage, and a tax on high-priced or Cadillac insurance plans would raise $201 billion to pay for other reforms. There is still controversy about the last point. We're back with the panel also on the day that the CBO said that their projection for the federal deficit this year is $1.4 trillion - Steve?

HAYES: To the extent that someone in, say, Wichita is paying attention to the minutiae of this debate, and to the extent that a Congressional Budget Office preliminary scoring of one version of one bill in one house of Congress matters -

BAIER: Because the preliminary scoring doesn't have the legislative language. And that is a big - a lot of gray area.

HAYES: And they say very straightforwardly that things could change.

To the extent that all of matters, this is helpful for the Democrats.

The reality is that none of that really matters because I think people are becoming more and more settled on what they think of the broad aspects of policy reform.

And what it doesn't change is the fact that Democrats are still divided among themselves and that the fights here are between Democrats. You're likely to see this new conference with Harry Reid, Christopher Dodd and Max Baucus, where they get together with the White House and they hash out the details of this, whether or not it's going to include a public option and the timetable for this, what have you.

That is where the real decisions will be made. And that is a problem for Democrats and the White House, because, remember, President Obama campaigned on doing all of these negotiations in public and on C-Span. This is going to be behind closed doors.

BAIER: On that point, Juan, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just put out a statement saying that this doesn't matter because the real bill will be written by Democratic leaders closed to the public conference room somewhere on Capitol Hill, and he went on to blast what's in the plan.

What about that, that the real mechanics of this will be pretty private?

WILLIAMS: Yes, but if the CBO numbers come out, and they had been in excess of this, if the had been flowing over the table, then you could have heard from Mitch McConnell, I told you so! This is going to bankrupt the American people. This is far more that Mr. Baucus predicted.

BAIER: Well, he is still sort of saying that.

WILLIAMS: So you can imagine there would have been hosannas on the Republican side as they would engage in what is essentially trying to block any change in terms of this health care legislation. And now, instead they're saying, you know, well, it doesn't matter, not a big deal.

But it's a big deal in terms of Max Baucus getting the vote and getting the process going, because just as he described, the real gain is going to be this very private, intense negotiation with Baucus, and then eventually between the House and Senate to try to reach some conclusion, and I must add here, of course President Obama is going to be the key player.

BAIER: A key also is Maine Senator Republican Olympia Snowe, and she has said she wants the CBO wants to score the actual legislative language, not this preliminary kind of gray area estimate. If they can get her to sign on, that's the biggest coup for the Democrats.

WILLIAMS: Well, they could say there is some level of bipartisanship.

But at this point, what we can clearly see is Republicans aren't playing and it is a Democratic game.

KRAUTHAMMER: Look, the CBO scoring, the numbers that came in, the blessing it gave is because of smoke and mirrors in the bill. For the people of Wichita, somebody has to wade into the weeds. I did it at great health risk.

(LAUGHTER)

Two items here. One of them is the $120 billion assumed of income from what are called fees of the big players in health care - the health insurers, the drug companies, the guys who do diagnostics and who produce the medical equipment.

The fee is a tax, and the tax, $120 billion, is going to end up out of your pocket and mine, because every penny of it will be in higher insurance, higher costs for drugs, for stents, any kind of medical devices, and for diagnostics. Everybody will pay.

But it's hidden. It is a cowardly way to do a tax. You do it on the industry and it is passed on.

Secondly, there are individual mandates. People are going to be shelling out a huge amount every year on insurance, and those who don't are going to have to pay a fine, also a tax, but under another name.

There are huge costs in here, which are all hidden, and that's why it looks OK.

And secondly, there is a $400 billion assumption of cuts in Medicare. That is not going to happen. It is an illusion. It is a fantasy. And that's why the numbers end up OK.

So if you really look behind all of these numbers, it's a disaster.