U.S. health bill ‘to leave 14m more uninsured’

A reporter noted that CBO got to that figure by estimating that fewer older Americans would get coverage, but Price said CBO did not take into account the entire for repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

Several conservative Republicans in the House said the plan was too similar to the Obamacare provisions it would replace, while some Republicans are concerned it will not lead to more affordable healthcare coverage.

The new headline number, which is well above the 15 million that the Brookings Institution predicted would lose coverage over the next 10 years, could be an electoral nightmare for Republicans. But the plan would leave 24 million more Americans uninsured by 2026 than there would be under Obamacare. About 20 million people gained coverage under Obamacare and its expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor.

“We disagree strenuously with the report that was put out”, Price said.

CBO also said that the country’s individual marketplace would not go into a death spiral either under Obamacare or the GOP’s replacement effort. That increase would include 6 million who don’t get coverage on the individual market, some 5 million people under Medicaid and about 2 million with employment-based coverage.

“Of course they’re going to say if we stop forcing people to buy something they don’t want to buy they’re not going to buy it”, Ryan said.

And if you need a crash course on the proposed health care law itself, here’s one from Vox and one from The Hill. “In the past, the CBO’s score has really been meaningless”.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in an interview broadcast Saturday that President Trump is committed to the healthcare plan proposed by House Republicans this week.

The Affordable Care Act isn’t ideal, and it was never meant to solve all the ills of America’s health care system, but it was a huge step toward providing more coverage to those that didn’t have insurance and more protections and benefits for those that did.

The agency, however, said federal deficits would fall by a net $337 billion in the 2017-26 period under the Republican bill. “This is not the government that makes you buy what we say you should buy and therefore the government thinks you’re all going to buy it”.

If this CBO report propels Democrats who want to preserve today’s Medicaid and Republicans who want fewer mandates to the same conference table to hash out a better plan, great. Starting in 2018, it allows insurers to charge them five times what the youngest ones pay, unless their individual state sets a different level, versus three times now.