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 The Congressional Budget Office, which provides official cost
estimates for legislation, is widely expected to find the Republican
plan will result in fewer Americans with health insurance than under
the Affordable Care Act, former Democratic President Barack Obama's
signature domestic legislation.
Just days before taking office in January, Trump promised "insurance
for everybody" in his Obamacare replacement.
House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the Republican
healthcare plan's top backer in Congress, acknowledged on NBC's
"Meet the Press" program on Sunday that the CBO projections would
likely show a decline in insurance coverage because the legislation
would drop an Obamacare provision mandating that Americans obtain
health insurance or pay a fine.
"The one thing I'm certain will happen is CBO will say: 'Well, gosh.
Not as many people will get coverage,'" Ryan said. "You know why?
Because this isn't a government mandate."
Ryan added the Republican plan would lower healthcare costs and
allow more people to afford coverage if they want it.
He said he expected the CBO report on Monday or Tuesday.
The House Republican legislation would also roll back an expansion
of Medicaid insurance for the poor, and replace Obamacare's
income-based subsidies with a system of fixed tax credits to help
people buy private insurance on the open market.
The credit rating agency Standard & Poor's has estimated 6 million
to 10 million people could lose health insurance under the
Republican plan, known as the American Health Care Act.
It would cancel tax revenues worth at least $600 billion over 10
years, according to Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation.
REPUBLICANS DOWNPLAY REPORT
The CBO report is needed to determine the full budgetary impact of
the legislation - whether the savings from the Medicaid cuts and
lower subsidy costs are enough to offset the loss of tax revenues.
Republicans have long opposed Obamacare, saying it was government
overreach and led to higher insurance premiums. Trump, a Republican,
has called the law a "disaster" and made its repeal and replacement
a key campaign pledge.
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Democrats and some influential Republicans say the legislation to
replace Obamacare would rip health insurance away from millions of
Americans and increase costs for many others. The 2010 law provided
20 million previously uninsured Americans with health coverage.
On Sunday, senior Trump administration officials attacked the CBO's
credibility and downplayed the upcoming report.
"We will see what the score is. In fact in the past, the CBO score
has really been meaningless," Gary Cohn, director of the White House
National Economic Council, told "Fox News Sunday."
Republicans have sharply criticized the CBO for its past estimates
that 22 million people would buy insurance through Obamacare's
government-run exchanges by 2016, when that number only came to
about 10.4 million, according to Department of Health and Human
Services data.
HHS Secretary Tom Price pledged on "Meet the Press" that "nobody
will be worse off financially" under the Republican plan.
Still, the plan faces an uphill battle winning support in the
Republican-controlled Congress. In the face of unified opposition
from Democrats, Republicans can only afford to lose 21 votes in the
House and two votes in the Senate.
Several conservative Republicans in the House said the plan was too
similar to the Obamacare provisions it would replace, while some
Republicans are concerned it will not lead to more affordable
healthcare coverage.
(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Caren Bohan and
Peter Cooney)
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