WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans on
Sunday dismissed an upcoming
Congressional Budget Office analysis
widely expected to conclude that more
Americans will be uninsured under a
proposal to dismantle Barack Obama's
health law, despite President Donald
Trump's promise of universal coverage.
Meanwhile, GOP opponents from
the right and center hardened
their positions against the
Trump-backed legislation. House
conservatives vowed to block the
bill as "Obamacare Lite" unless
there are more restrictions, even
as a Republican senator warned
the plan would never pass as is
due to opposition from
moderates.
"Do not walk the plank and vote
for a bill that cannot pass the
Senate and then have to face the
consequences of that vote," said
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. "If they
vote for this bill, they're going to
put the House majority at risk
next year."
Speaking in television interviews,
House Speaker Paul Ryan and
Trump administration officials
vowed to move forward on their
proposed "repeal and replace"
plan regardless of the CBO
findings, insisting they can
work past GOP disagreements
and casting the issue as one of
"choice" in which consumers
are freed of a government
mandate to buy insurance.
The CBO is scheduled to release
its long-awaited cost analysis of
the House GOP leadership plan
early this week, including
estimates on the number of
people likely to be covered. It'll
likely affect Republicans'
chances of passing the
proposal.
Ryan, R-Wis., said he fully
expects the CBO analysis to find
that fewer people will be
covered under the GOP plan
because it eliminates the government
requirement to be insured.
"What we're trying to achieve here is
bringing down the cost of care, bringing
down the cost of insurance not through
government mandates and monopolies
but by having more choice and
competition," he said. "We're not going
to make an American do what they don't
want to do."
The GOP legislation would eliminate the
current mandate that nearly all people in
the United States carry insurance or face
fines. It would use tax credits to help
consumers buy health coverage, expand
health savings accounts, phase out an
expansion of Medicaid and cap that
program for the future, end some
requirements for health plans under
Obama's law, and scrap a number of
taxes.
During the presidential campaign and as
recently as January, Trump repeatedly
stressed his support for universal health
coverage, saying his plan to replace the
Affordable Care Act would provide
"insurance for everybody."
But on Sunday, his aides took pains to
explain that a CBO finding of fewer
people covered would not necessarily
mean that fewer people will be covered.
"If the CBO was right about Obamacare
to begin with, there'd be 8 million more
people on Obamacare today than there
actually are," said Mick Mulvaney,
director of the White House Office of
Management and Budget, disputing the
accuracy of CBO data. "Sometimes we ask
them to do stuff they're not capable of
doing, and estimating the impact of a bill
of this size probably isn't the best use of
their time."
Health Secretary Tom Price said he
"firmly" believed that "nobody will be
worse off financially" under the health
care overhaul. He said people will have
choices as they select the kind of
coverage they want as opposed to what
the government forces them to buy. In
actuality, tax credits in Republican
legislation being debated in the House
may not be as generous to older people
as what is in the current law.
"I believe and the president believes
firmly that if you create a system that's
accessible for everybody and you
provide the financial feasibility for
everybody to get coverage, that we have
a great opportunity to increase coverage
over where we are right now," he said.
Gary Cohn, Trump's chief economic
adviser, described past CBO analyses as
"meaningless."
"We are offering coverage to everyone,"
he said. "If you are on Medicaid today,
you're going to stay on Medicaid. If you
are covered under an employee-
sponsored plan, you're going to be
continued to be covered under an
employee-sponsored plan. If you fall into
that middle group, we're going to
provide tax credit so you can go out and
buy a plan."
House conservatives weren't buying it.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a co-founder of
the House Freedom Caucus, criticized the
plan as an unacceptable form of
"Obamacare Lite." He reiterated that he
and other caucus members will seek to
block the House bill unless there are
additional changes. They want a quicker
phaseout of Medicaid benefits and are
opposed to proposed tax credits as a new
entitlement that will add to government
costs.
Members of the caucus will meet with
White House officials on Tuesday. Jordan
expressed hope that Trump is sincere in
expressing a willingness to negotiate
changes, criticizing Ryan for his "take it
or leave it" stance.
"I'm not for this plan and I think there's
lot of opposition to this plan in the
House and Senate," Jordan said. "Either
work with us or you don't end up getting
the votes. That's the real choice here."
But pressuring the White House on the
opposite side were moderate Republican
governors and senators, who said Trump
needed to allow for continuing Medicaid
coverage for the poor.
"It's not like we love Obamacare. It
means don't throw the baby out with the
bathwater," said Ohio Gov. John Kasich,
a Republican. "Don't kill Medicaid
expansion. And you've got to fix the
exchange, but you have to have an
ability to subsidize people at lower
income levels."