An ambitious universal health plan pending in Congress has just received a green light from congressional budget and tax analysts. They have found that it would not only cut the costs of health care but actually save money.

The Healthy Americans Act was introduced last year by Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah. The favorable finding was issued by the Congressional Budget Office and the staff of the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation as a “preliminary guidance.” A formal estimate of the proposal’s budgetary effect will come later.

The bipartisan plan, co-sponsored in the Senate by six Democrats and six Republicans, would require every American to purchase private health insurance and provide federal subsidies to enable everyone to afford it. State-run purchasing pools called Health Help Agencies would coordinate payments from employers, individuals and the government and supply information about costs and quality of competing private health insurance plans.

Rep. Wyden hailed the financial analysis as having “thrown decades of conventional wisdom in the trash can.” He said, “They’ve proven we can get everyone in American health care coverage without breaking the bank.” Sen. Bennett said it showed that the plan would “improve coverage and provide health insurance for every American.”

By coincidence, a high-level group, the Bipartisan Policy Center, comprising four former Senate majority leaders, has recently put national health care at the top of its agenda and plans to make specific recommendations for the new president and Congress before the end of this year. One of the policy center partners is former Maine Sen. George Mitchell.

The group can be expected to appraise the details of the Wyden-Bennett plan as well as a range of proposals going all the way from leaving the present system in place, through a major expansion of Medicare, to a universal single-payer plan like those of many other advanced nations.

Many Americans naturally like to boast that they enjoy the best health care in the world. But our system actually lags behind most other industrialized nations and even some developing nations in most measures of excellence such as longevity and infant mortality. And it costs twice as much per capita as most others.

With a new president and a new Congress, and with the guidance of Mr. Mitchell and the other former Senate leaders, the reports show we should be able to extend health care coverage to all Americans, improve quality, cut the costs and really have something to boast about.