House GOP Health Bill Leaves 23 Million More Uninsured C.B.O. Says

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been the target of Republican leaders and their base since its passage.  With full control Congress and the White House, they now hold the power to make changes. They are certain of their desire to remove the funding mechanism for ACA -- a tax on the wealthiest citizens -- everything else be damed including millions of citizens who will not be able to obtain or afford coverage.

The House voted 217-213 on May 4th in favor of a bill that seeks to eliminate many of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act leaving tens of millions of Americans without healthcare in exchange for eliminating taxes on the wealthiest Americans.  At the time, the Congressional Budget Office report on the impacts of the legislation was not completed due to the hastily manner in which the bill was proposed and quickly voted on.   The CBO report was released this week and it's damning as expected.

[The bill] would increase the projected number of people without health insurance by 14 million next year and by 23 million in 2026, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.   The new forecast of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is another blow to Republican efforts to undo [the Affordable Healthcare Act]. The Senate has already said it will make substantial changes to the measure passed by the House, but even Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is sounding uncertain about his chances of finding a majority to repeal and replace the health law. “I don’t know how we get to 50 at the moment,” Mr. McConnell told Reuters on Wednesday. “But that’s the goal.”  

The new report from the budget office is sure to influence Republican senators, who are writing their own version of the legislation behind closed doors. The report provided fresh ammunition for Democrats trying to kill the repeal bill, which they have derided as “Trumpcare.”

The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, harshly criticized House Republicans for voting on their revised repeal measure without an updated analysis from the budget office. “Republicans were haunted by the ghost of C.B.O. scores past, so they went ahead without one,” Mr. Schumer said. 

How's this for the spirit of compromise, which Republicans wanted no part of for the past 8 years?

Asked why Democrats had been excluded, Mr. McConnell said, “We’re not going to waste our time talking to people that have no interest in fixing the problem.” Democrats have said they would gladly work with Republicans if the Republicans would renounce their goal of repealing Mr. Obama’s health care law.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/us/politics/cbo-congressional-budget-office-health-care.html