White House: CBO ‘Simply Has It Wrong’ On GOP Healthcare Bill

In recent weeks, Trump administration officials and Republican lawmakers have criticized what they said were overly optimistic estimates from the CBO of the number of Americans who would sign up for health insurance on government-run exchanges.

The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that 14 million Americans will lose their health insurance coverage by 2018 if the House Republicans healthcare bill goes into place.

Although Donovan said he is glad the Republican plan grandfathers in Medicaid beneficiaries, he said he isn’t convinced having insurance improves a person’s health.

Average premiums would increase before 2020 and then decrease by 2026 to be roughly 10 percent lower than under current law. If it’s replaced with the Republican’s American Health Care Act, that number jumps to 52 million people. What they do will affect health care for a generation. But, hey, we’re going to save some money, so Paul Ryan is happy. “We’re not going to make an American do what they don’t want to do”. Moderate Republicans may raise concerns about the CBO’s estimates related to Medicaid, which it said would fuel in large part the rise in uninsured people.

‘If the CBO was right about Obamacare to begin with, there’d be 8 million more people on Obamacare today than there actually are, ‘ Mulvaney said today on ABC’s This Week. The report does estimate an eventual 10 percent decline in premiums, but the short term view shows premiums spiking 15 to 20 percent. How many people may “lose coverage” is the debate progressives want to have, as if that’s the only relevant question in US health care.

“We disagree strenuously with the report that was put out”, Price told reporters at the White House after the CBO score was released.

But those changes will vary widely depending on age, because the new law would allow insurers to charge older enrollees five times as much for insurance as younger people.

The legislation, called the American Health Care Act, repeals Obamacare’s mandate that everyone must have insurance or pay a penalty. Much of the increase would be from changes in Medicaid enrollment as states end Obama’s expansions of eligibility.

The CBO report, or lack thereof, was a hot-button issue during last week’s mark-up hearings in the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

“This would force people off their insurance”, says Mary Johnson, a Social Security policy analyst and researcher for the Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan lobbying organization.

“The one thing I’m certain will happen is CBO will say, “Well, gosh, not as many people will get coverage.’ You know why?”

In what could be considered a message to reluctant conservatives still on the fence about backing the act, Ryan said he agreed with President Donald Trump that next year could be an electoral “bloodbath” for Republicans if the new legislation fails.

Critics of the law had been pointing to the CBO score as a way to fully understand the potential impact of the AHCA on the federal budget and the United States healthcare system.