Republicans Are Trying To Pressure CBO To Give Them Better Score On Health Bill

Republicans Are Trying To Pressure CBO To Give Them Better Score On Health Bill

The last version of the Republican plan would cause 22 million to lose their health insurance, the Congressional Budget Office report found.

Now Republicans are pressuring the Congressional Budget Office to give them a better score on their plan to replace Obamacare.

After the CBO released its analysis that 22 million would lose insurance, several Senate Republicans announced they would not support the bill.

Notably, Republicans are not attempting to revise their bill to insure more Americans, rather they are trying to get the nonpartisan budget office to simply change their analysis.

The CBO is using standard procedure by using data from 2016 in their analysis but Republican Senator Ron Johnson argues that if the CBO uses more recent data the uninsured number would come down.

“It’s completely unfair,” he said of the CBO baseline. “It’s completely penalizing the evaluation of what the Senate bill really does compared to current reality.”

CBO says its following standard procedure and that it uses the same baseline for bills passed under reconciliation as is used for the budget. Republicans are using 2016 budget reconciliation process for their health bill in order to avoid needing to get 60 votes in the Senate.

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