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The larger stakes in the ObamaCare fight are whether Republicans can be a governing party. They can win elections but not since the early 2000s have they showed they can pass a major reform through Congress. They blew it the last time they controlled both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in 2005-2006. They’ve already wasted six…

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…

President Trump on Monday made a late-hour appeal to senators – targeting members of his own party – to move forward with debate over faltering Republican legislation to overhaul the Affordable Care Act. “Any senator who votes against starting debate is telling America that you are fine with the Obamacare nightmare, which is what it is,” Trump…

The latest version of the Senate GOP’s bill to partially repeal and replace Obamacare was pronounced dead the evening of Monday, July 17, when Utah senator Mike Lee and Kansas senator Jerry Moran announced their opposition, bringing the number of “no” votes to at least four. Where do things go from here on health care?…

Thirty years before Republican lawmakers imperilled President Donald Trump’s hopes of uprooting Obamacare, the property mogul penned some negotiating tips in The Art of The Deal. “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it,” he wrote. In a week when his party’s inability to repeal and replace his predecessor’s…

The federal share of national health spending grew by about one-eighth between 2008 and 2016 and by the year 2025 is projected to have increased by nearly one-fifth. By 2025, federal, state and local taxpayers will be financing fully two-thirds of American health care . Some might say “not bad for government work.” Careful readers might also…

If President Trump is serious about repealing ObamaCare—about delivering a better policy with more choice and lower costs—there’s a simple move he could make that wouldn’t require congressional approval. It would align the interests of lawmakers and their staffers with the interests of voters. Congress is essentially unaffected by the high costs of the ObamaCare…

Recriminations are already underway – at the White House, on Capitol Hill, in the news media. They are debating whose fault it is that Senate Republicans can’t pass a health care bill. Was it the fault of Mitch McConnell? Or Mike Lee?  Or the half dozen other senators who balked? In order to successfully pass…

Arguably the most significant data point in the entire debate about the Senate health care bill has been the CBO’s claim that in 2026, 22 million fewer people would have health insurance under the Senate bill than under Obamacare. Democrats have seized on this number to stoke fears about the bill’s impact; moderate Republicans, intimidated…

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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