On July 21, all eight former directors of the Congressional Budget Office sent a letter to Congress defending the integrity and professionalism of CBO. But even institutions with integrity can occasionally be wrong. CBO’s score of the House and Senate healthcare bills is a case in point.
The former directors did not comment on, much less defend, those specific CBO scores. They merely objected “to recent attacks on the integrity and professionalism of the agency and on the agency’s role in the legislative process.” They could not defend the scores of the Republican plans, because they, like all other Americans, cannot see the underlying models and assumptions.
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The most recent version of the Senate Republican bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare would result in 22 million additional people without insurance over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported Thursday.
The number of uninsured is essentially unchanged from the original draft of the legislation released last month.
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Key ObamaCare subsidies to insurers will be paid this month, the White House confirmed to The Hill on Wednesday, one day before the deadline to make July’s cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments.
The administration has not made a commitment beyond this month.
The payments help low-income people afford the co-pays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs associated with health insurance policies.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Saturday night that Senate consideration of legislation repealing and replacing ObamaCare will be delayed while Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) recovers from surgery.
McCain had announced earlier on Saturday that he would not be in the Senate next week, depriving Republicans of a key vote.
Without McCain, Senate Republicans likely would not have had the 50 votes necessary to advance the legislation.
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Top Senate Republicans are signaling that they are willing to dramatically increase funding for a special state innovation fund in order to persuade wavering moderates to support their floundering healthcare reform bill, according to sources involved in negotiations.
One Republican senator said leaders could double the amount of money in the bill’s long-term state innovation fund. The legislation, as currently drafted, dedicates $62 billion over eight years to encourage low-income people with high healthcare costs to buy insurance, according to a summary posted by the Senate Budget Committee.
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Since Senate Republicans released their healthcare reform bill early Thursday, the narrative from the media has been that this bill is a giant tax cut for “the rich.”
This narrative is false. ObamaCare imposed a long list of taxes that directly hit middle class families.
The Senate’s “Better Care Reconciliation Act” (BCRA) repeals these taxes and contains a total of $701 billion in tax reductions over the next decade.
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Senate Republicans plan to vote before the July 4 recess on their legislation to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has little margin for error, as he can afford just two defections from his conference with all Democrats expected to oppose the bill. Vice President Mike Pence could then be called in to break the tie.
Here’s a look at where McConnell’s conference stands on the legislation, which was unveiled on Thursday.
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The Trump administration has made critical ObamaCare payments to insurers for the month of June but won’t provide any certainty about whether they’ll continue in the future.
The payments, known as cost sharing reduction subsidies, reimburse insurers for providing discounts to low-income patients.
Insurers have been threatening to raise premiums — or leave the ObamaCare markets — if they don’t receive certainty about the payments from Congress or the White House.
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While Senate Republicans are drafting their healthcare plan behind closed doors, they’ve given reporters a general idea of what might be in it.
- It will slow down the phase-out of the Medicaid expansion
- Tax credits will be beefed up
- It will keep some ObamaCare taxes
- It will include more funding to combat the opioid crisis
- It will try to stabilize the ObamaCare exchanges
- It will include more funding to handle preexisting conditions
The House passed legislation Tuesday to ensure that immigrants in the country illegally can’t access tax credits for health insurance premiums.
Rep. Lou Barletta’s (R-Pa.) bill, approved in a largely party-line vote of 238-184, would require the Treasury Department to confirm that people applying for the tax credits are verified as U.S. citizens or legal residents by the Commissioner of Social Security or the Secretary of Homeland Security.
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