NOTE: On Sunday, CBO changed its long-term estimates of cost savings, which it said were based on a misunderstanding of this bill. Please see this update.)

Given the drama and suspense of the past few weeks, it’s understandable that the first round of commentary about the new Senate health bill would focus on the deals that Majority Leader Harry Reid had to make to bring aboard all 60 of the votes that he will need to beat a Republican filibuster. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went so far as to declare it “a monstrosity, a 2,100 page monstrosity full of special deals. This is not renaming the post office. Make no mistake, this bill will reshape our nation and our lives.”

But while you might think that all this horsetrading would produce a weaker and more bloated bill, it appears that, by some measures at least, the opposite may have happened. The preliminary analysis suggests that the new bill would actually be more effective than the previous version in reining in health care costs in the long term. To use the current Washington cliche, it would do a better job “bending the curve.”