House Republicans are plowing ahead with their Obamacare replacement although it still lacks an official price tag, saying that will come before a full House vote.
Rep. Kevin Brady, head of the Ways and Means Committee, which is heavily involved in the legislation, said Tuesday that there’s not yet a score from the Congressional Budget Office because it’s hard for the agency to evaluate given how the measure shifts more control from the federal government to the states.
“There’s a good reason they don’t have a score, yet, and that’s because we’re giving freedom to people they haven’t had before,” Brady said on Hugh Hewitt’s radio program.
Another key committee, House energy and commerce, plans to mark up the legislation on Wednesday morning. Bills aren’t required to have a CBO score before committee hearings, and often don’t, but the measure would need to get a score before the full House could vote on it.
A House GOP aide confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the Obamacare replacement will indeed have a score before it goes to the floor.
“We think the bill is fiscally responsible because it enacts the most significant entitlement reform to Medicaid since the program was created, eliminates Obamacare’s taxes … and will reduce the deficit,” the aide said, in an email exchange.
Brady, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders rolled out their plan Monday to repeal and replace big parts of the Affordable Care Act. President Trump has applauded their efforts, without specifically endorsing or rejecting the plan.
But there are political reasons for Republicans to avoid releasing a CBO score as long as possible, since it will show how much the plan would cost and how many people it would cover relative to the Affordable Care Act. Once those details are out, it could expose them to more specific criticisms about the measure they’re proposing.
Brady said he and his colleagues have 90 percent knowledge of what the CBO score will look like. But that number shifted over the last few weeks, as they kept tweaking the legislation.
“They’re just taking their time to get it right,” Brady told Hewitt. “We’re making some big changes.”
Lobbyists say Republicans have struggled to come up with an Obamacare replacement that covers many of the uninsured but doesn’t cause deficit spending.
Previous iterations would have been paid for mostly by capping the tax exemption for employer-sponsored coverage, but that provision was removed from the bill introduced this week. Instead, it keeps many of the Obamacare taxes on the books for a year longer and maintains the law’s tax on high cost health plans, likely an effort to improve the measure’s score.
Dave Drucker contributed to this report.
