WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the Republican plan for health care (all times local):
8:15 a.m.
White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney says he doesn’t trust the Congressional Budget Office’s prediction that 14 million Americans will lose health care insurance in the next year under the Republican plan.
In interviews Tuesday on MSNBC and Fox News “Fox & Friends,” Mulvaney noted that the CBO was wrong in estimating coverage under former President Barack Obama’s plan. Mulvaney said the office is wrong now too.
He said, “I don’t believe the facts are correct.” Mulvaney said the CBO is “really good at counting numbers but maybe not that good about counting coverage.”
CBO had predicted 23 million people would enroll in online marketplaces when Obama’s law was enacted but the actual number was 12 million, largely because it overestimated how the individual mandate would prompt people to buy coverage.
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8:15 a.m.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, says the Republican health care plan could be “devastating” to state budgets.
Cuomo told MSNBC on Tuesday that he is concerned about the plan to dramatically reduce Medicaid funding. CBO says the plan would reduce budget deficits by $337 billion over a decade. The largest savings would come from reductions for Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for low-income Americans, and elimination of Obama’s subsidies for individuals buying coverage.
Cuomo says he’s heard “rumors” that the GOP plan could cut as much as $3 billion for a state like New York. He says, “I can’t make up $3 billion dollars. It would wreak havoc on the state.”
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3:45 a.m.
Critics of GOP health care legislation have gotten fresh ammunition from a report that says the bill would increase the ranks of the uninsured by 14 million people next year alone, and 24 million over a decade.
The findings from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office could make prospects for the legislation backed by President Donald Trump even tougher, with a few House and Senate conservatives already in open revolt and moderate Republicans queasy about big cuts to the Medicaid safety net for the poor.
But the bill’s supporters at the White House and Capitol Hill show no sign of retreat. Instead, they are attacking the parts of the CBO report they didn’t like while touting the more favorable findings, including smaller deficits from their bill and lower premiums over time.
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