Let’s Not Let the Republicans Make the Obamacare Replacement Debate About the Congressional Budget Office—Fewer People Will Be Covered and Many Will See Big Cost Increases

If you carve a huge chunk of revenue out of Obamacare and shift more subsidies to the middle class it should not be a surprise that the lower income folks will pay the price

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that 14 million of people would lose coverage in 2018, 21 million in 2020, and 24 million in 2026 if the House Republican plan is allowed to significantly amend the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare).

In my last post, I called the House Republican bill "mind boggling" for the negative impact I believe it would have on the number of those uninsured and the viability of the individual insurance market. Guess the CBO agrees with me.

The CBO's report came after the Brookings Institute estimated 15 million people would lose Medicaid and individual health insurance coverage at the end of ten years under the Republican plan. The arguably more business oriented S&P Global estimated between 6 million and 10 million people would lose coverage between 2020 and 2024.

Republicans are jumping on the CBO estimate reminding us that the CBO’s Obamacare projections haven’t been perfect in the past.

This is not the issue.

What Republicans are proposing, and how those proposals will impact how many people have insurance in this country, is the issue.

Reports of the Demise of Obamacare Repeal and Replace Are Greatly Exaggerated

Many recent press reports have centered around the notion that Republicans are stuck in the mud trying to get their repeal and replace promises moving.

That line appeared to be reinforced over the weekend when President Trump said, in a pre-Super Bowl interview, that the process could draw out into next year. My sense is that what Trump was talking about was the fact that the whole process, that includes implementing the replacement, could take well past 2017. Trump, never one for getting the details right, was taken literally by the press looking to write stories about how the whole process was foundering.

Speaker Paul Ryan quickly countered in his press briefing that Republicans will legislate a repeal and replace of Obamacare this year.

As I have reported to you a number of times, that process, especially the replace part, will be very difficult to achieve given the need to have at least eight Democrats onside with a complete replace bill.

But, I can also tell you that the repeal part is still on track to occur this spring, as I have been reporting for some time, likely in March.