Daily Archives: May 26, 2017

The Congressional Budget Office released its latest Obamacare-related estimates last week, predicting that the House-passed bill to repeal and replace the embattled law would lead to 23 million more uninsured people by 2026. Although CBO itself acknowledges that this latest prediction is “especially uncertain,” one thing is true: CBO is wrong. The Galen Institute’s Doug Badger explains why in a new Galen Institute paper that can be found here. The agency’s errors are not only significant—one prediction of 2016 exchange-based enrollment missed by 140%–but the agency is also consistent: it regularly over-estimates the number of people who would get insurance through the Obamacare exchanges.

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CBO claims that the House repeal and replace bill could degrade the quality of insurance. This editorializing could use some scrutiny. Without government supervision of insurance minutiae and a mandate to buy coverage or pay a penalty, CBO asserts that “a few million” people will turn to insurance that falls short of the “widely accepted definition” of “a comprehensive major medical policy.” Under the House reform, Americans won’t have any problem insuring against a bad health event, even if CBO won’t admit it. The House bill is designed is create more alternatives that can accommodate the diverse needs and preferences of a nation of some 320 million people. CBO has become a fear factory because it prefers having government decide for everybody.

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