House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said Tuesday that the Congressional Budget Office’s report on the Republican healthcare bill shows the GOP is “moving in the right direction,” despite Democratic complaints that the report shows millions of additional people would be uninsured under the bill.
“The CBO report yesterday confirmed we are moving in the right direction in a couple of areas,” Brady told reporters at the Capitol. He pointed to their efforts to do away with the individual mandate, $883 billion in tax cuts over the next ten years, and the spending cuts.
“Freeing people up from the individual mandate, no longer forcing them to buy government approved healthcare they don’t want and can’t afford, is allowing us going forward to focus on the families, many of them who work for small businesses or small business people themselves, or are working themselves off Medicaid and need that tax credit available to them to buy healthcare they want,” Brady said.
Brady on Tuesday spoke to Senate Republicans at their weekly policy lunch, along with Vice President Mike Pence, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore.
He remained insistent that the legislation is still on track to reach the House floor by the end of March, even despite the potential need to confer with the Senate and “fine-tune” the proposed tax credits in the bill, which have come under fire from conservative lawmakers.
“We’re having discussions within our conference and with the Senate as well as to how to make sure those tax credits are real, authentic — help people get the healthcare they need at every stage in their life. No decisions have been made, but we are always looking for ways to improve and fine-tune this before we bring it to the floor,” Brady said.
The bill hit a snag on Monday after the CBO released its report on the bill, estimating that it will leave 14 million Americans without coverage after the first year and 24 million without coverage by 2026. However, proponents of the bill downplayed those claims and pointed to the deficit reduction figures and to the CBO’s failed score of the Affordable Care Act in 2009.
The House Budget Committee will bring the AHCA up for consideration on Thursday after it passed the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees last week. The committee was originally scheduled to meet to consider the legislation on Wednesday, but the meeting was pushed back due to Winter Storm Stella.
