A new report from Congressional number crunchers makes it a little more difficult for Republicans to use the process known as budget reconciliation to repeal that Obama health law, as such an effort may now require the GOP to find billions in extra budget savings.

The report by the Congressional Budget Office, found the plan to repeal the Obama health law would increase the deficit by $137 billion over ten years.

That means the GOP will have to come up with around $137 billion in budget savings, most likely through savings in entitlement programs, and include that in any plan to repeal the Obama health law.

The figure could have been much larger, as they $137 billion was determined with "dynamic scoring," a process that takes into account economic activity spurred by policy changes; without that different evaluation, the CBO found the repeal of the health law would have increased the federal deficit by $353 billion over ten years.

ajc.com

Credit: Jamie Dupree

icon to expand image

Credit: Jamie Dupree

The instructions in this year's budget resolution written by Congressional Republicans require a plan that must have savings of no less than $3 billion:

ajc.com

Credit: Jamie Dupree

icon to expand image

Credit: Jamie Dupree

Those provisions must be approved by three committees in the House and two committees in the Senate by July 24, which could set up a vote on repeal of the Obama health law either in late July or early August.

But now it seems likely that effort to repeal the Obama health law will deal with more than just the President's health reform package.