Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price on Sunday vowed no Americans would suffer financially as a result of the healthcare replacement bill House Republicans have rolled out and hope to pass soon.
“I firmly believe that nobody will be worse off financially in the process that we’re going through,” Price told NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd. “They’ll have choices that they can select the kind of coverage that they want for themselves and for their family, not the government forces them to buy.”
The physician and former Georgia lawmaker said the American Health Care Act is in no way “Obamacare Lite,” as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has labeled it and pushed for his office’s legislation instead.
“I’ll tell you that the plan that we’ve laid out here will not leave that number of individuals uncovered. In fact, I believe, again, that we’ll have more individuals covered,” Price insisted.
The bill would replace subsidies made available to low-income people and allow them to buy insurance with a limited tax credit. It would also freeze Medicaid expansion over the next few years.
“We don’t dictate to people what they ought to buy or what they must buy,” Price said.
The Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its score of the bill on Monday. Price denied a study by the Brookings Institution, which estimates 15 million people will lose their coverage.
