White House press secretary Sean Spicer pointed out Monday that the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates on Obamacare were off by half, as Republicans braced for poor marks on their replacement bill, expected as early as Monday afternoon.
What does the CBO do? The CBO is expected to release a score on how the American Health Care Act, which would repeal and partially replace Obamacare, would affect insurance coverage and the deficit. The CBO scores major legislative packages, but GOP leadership introduced the legislation a week ago and advanced it through two committees without a score.
Lawmakers flee for the hills? If the CBO says the legislation would cause millions of people to lose insurance, which independent estimates believe could be up to 15 million people, it could give lawmakers an excuse to flee or withdraw their support.
Moderate GOP senators have been concerned about how pulling back from the Medicaid expansion in 2020 would affect their home states.
The campaign Save My Care is running ads targeting vulnerable Republicans for supporting the bill.
And with Republicans having only 52 seats in the Senate and needing 50 votes to pass the bill under reconciliation, they have little margin for defections.
The Spicer Spin: In anticipation of the score, Spicer sought to highlight CBO’s poor record on Obamacare. The budget office originally predicted 21 million people would sign up on Obamacare’s exchanges and then downgraded it to 10 million.
“As far as their numbers go and the number of people they predicted back then they were off by more than half,” Spicer said during his press briefing Monday.
Spicer also sought to assuage jittery lawmakers concerned about voting for a bill that could cause millions to lose coverage.
“If this is what you are basing your vote on, you have to look at historical context on how that information was provided,” he said. “There is gonna be a ton of factors that people will rely on.”
