American Health Care Act Takes Major Hit from CBO

The landmark bill that the Trump Administration has been trying to pass since taking office to repeal ObamaCare took a major hit yesterday after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its initial report on the bill.

One amendment proposed by New Jersey Republican Representative Tom MacArthur has the American Health Care Act on the ropes. The amendment in question would allow states to waive rules governing what an insurance plan must cover, and would also allow insurers to charge sick individuals more because of their health. According to estimates done by the CBO in 10 years’ time, this would leave 23 million more people without insurance due to a substantial increase in the price of premiums.

Although this amendment is just an option for the states, the CBO also believes that one sixth of the population lives in a state that would take full advantage of the option. If the states are to take advantage, those with pre-existing conditions would be unable to find affordable health care since it is possible that their premiums will increase by 800 percent, even though there will be extra funding.

Even though it made it through the House of Representatives, the Senate is going to take a very long look at the bill before sending it to become a law. Many believe that there will be many significant changes to go along with it.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “I don’t know how we get to 50 [votes] at the moment. But that’s the goal. And exactly what the composition of that [bill] is I’m not going to speculate about because it serves no purpose.”

All members of the Republican party are in agreement that Obamacare needs to be repealed, but exactly what should take its place is still a question that no one has an answer too. There is currently a special committee in the Senate dedicated to discovering the answer, but as Senator McConnell said, they are some ways off from creating a solution that everyone is happy with. Some of the major issues that the committee is having difficulty getting a majority support for topics such as Medicaid cuts, waivers for states out of minimum coverage requirements, and also the rules for pre-existing conditions.

Even with this dispute from the Senate, many representatives are still proud of the bill which they wrote, Rep. MacArthur even said, “I respect the CBO’s role, but just because a group of auditors down the block have created a model that has a lot of ifs, ands, and maybes, looking out 10 years, doesn’t make that the gospel.” This statement echoes the opinion of the executive office who also agree that the CBO is wrong in their beliefs.

Although it is the CBO’s job to determine what is best for the country fiscally, those who disagree with their position are not as off as many would believe since there are a lot of positives that would result from the passage of the American Health Care Act. To begin with, it would repeal many of the key components of Obamacare which is already “collapsing.”

In addition to repealing parts of Obamacare, it would cut Medicaid by about $834 billion over the next 10 years, which is helping to reduce the deficit by $119 billion over the next 10 years. Lastly, this new bill would also provide a tax cut of about $992 billion dollars. Although this tax cut would primarily affect higher earners, there have been many times in history where the wealthiest have received tax cuts and the economy is thus stimulated as a result.

The aisle is clearly divided in response to how to handle the current insurance policy situation. The Democrats view the American Health Care Act as one that will do more harm than good compared to Obamacare, whereas many of the Republicans do not see how the current situation can get worse.

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