The White House on Monday slammed the Congressional Budget Office’s “history of inaccuracy” in projecting the effects of healthcare bills shortly after the agency released a report showing that 22 million more people would be uninsured through a Senate plan President Trump is supporting.
“The CBO has consistently proven it cannot accurately predict how healthcare legislation will impact insurance coverage,” the White House said. “This history of inaccuracy, as demonstrated by its flawed report on coverage, premiums and predicted deficit arising out of Obamacare, reminds us that its analysis must not be trusted blindly.”
The plan being advanced in the Senate, called the Better Care Reconciliation Act, is being debated by Republicans and would repeal and replace portions of Obamacare. The White House and other Republicans have often pointed out that the number of people the office projected to enroll in private coverage through the Obamacare exchanges fell far short of expectations. That happened partly because CBO expected employers to send employees onto the exchanges, an outcome that didn’t occur en masse, but also because people chose to forego coverage or sign up for less comprehensive plans.
In 2013, the CBO estimated that 24 million people would have private coverage through the exchanges by 2016, but the total enrollment was closer to about 11 million.
The CBO report released Monday shows a slight decrease in uninsurance rates from the House bill. In that score, the CBO projected 23 million more people would be uninsured. Following reports about those projections, Trump urged senators to make their version of the healthcare bill less “mean.” They made subsidies coincide with geography and income, not just age, and provided billions of dollars to stabilize the exchanges, but the CBO report suggests the changes made only a dent in health insurance coverage.
Some Republican senators, such as Susan Collins of Maine, have said they would be concerned about voting for a bill that would raise uninsurance rates so significantly. They are also concerned about changes to Medicaid that have been proposed.
Conservatives, meanwhile, say that the bill does not go far enough in repealing Obamacare and reducing premiums.
Premiums for many middle-income families who don’t qualify for subsidies have risen following Obamacare’s passage because the bill requires insurers to provide a range of benefits and provide coverage for people with pre-existing illnesses. The instability of not enough young, healthy people signing up for coverage has contributed to premium increases and insurers exiting the exchanges, as has the uncertainty on the healthcare law. The Trump administration has seized on the troubles the exchanges are facing as evidence that the healthcare law should be repealed.
“As more and more people continue to lose coverage and face fewer healthcare choices, President Trump is committed to repealing and replacing Obamacare, which has failed the American people for far too long,” the White House said in its statement.
Republican leaders hope to vote on a bill this week and will need at least 50 votes to advance the legislation through reconciliation. No Democrat is expected to vote for the bill, and because Republicans have only a narrow margin they can afford to lose no more than two votes for passage, assuming a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence.
