White House questions CBO
The White House says the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that 22 million more people will be uninsured in 2026 “must not be trusted blindly.”
The White House questioned the office’s predictions that millions of more Americans would be uninsured under a Senate health care proposal compared with President Barack Obama’s health care law.
The White House says the CBO “has consistently proven it cannot accurately predict how health care legislation will impact insurance coverage.”
It says the office has a “history of inaccuracy,” and cites its “flawed report on coverage, premiums and predicted deficit arising out of Obamacare.”
instead urging Republicans to make changes to the program instead of replacing it with one that is being crafted without committee hearings.
“There is a reason they want to jam this through in one week,” Schumer said, “They are ashamed of their bill.”
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-nev., said the Senate’s draft bill would not only hurt many Nevadans, but it would have a disproportionate impact on minority communities. She said uninsured rates for Latinos in the state fell from 34 percent to 19 percent under the ACA and dropped from 20 percent to 10.7 percent for Latino children.
Cortez Masto said non-elderly Latinos would suffer the most under Medicaid cuts in the Senate draft.
Republicans update bill
Trump, in a tweet early Monday, said Republicans were working “very hard” to craft health care legislation without support of Democrats. Trump said the alternative would be to let Obamacare “crash and burn” on its own. The Senate released an updated version of its bill Monday.
A change in the bill was aimed at closing a gap that would allow healthy people to not buy insurance until they became ill and purchase a plan when they had a pre-existing condition.
The change would require that people who let their coverage lapse for 63 days in one year would be
locked out of the insurance market for six months the following year.
Republican leaders were still crafting changes to the legislation on Monday, seeking ways to sway lawmakers. There are nine senators who have voiced concerns about the bill and five who have said they would not vote for it in the current form.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-maine, noted that the bill defunds Planned Parenthood, which offers cancer screening and family planning for low-income women. She also questioned coverage under the bill for people in rural areas.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump called Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-texas, and probably others, over the weekend. Paul and Cruz are two of the four conservatives who have called the draft legislation too liberal.
Paul said Monday that the lack of time to digest the 149-page bill, the CBO score and additional changes would make it difficult for many senators to vote for it this week.
Heller, who faces re-election in 2018, said “The CBO score confirms that the bill in its current form doesn’t go far enough to lower costs for Nevada families or protect Nevadans on Medicaid.”
Contact Gary Martin at 202-6627390 or gmartin@reviewjournal. com. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.