Tag: CBO score

Freshman Democrats to chairs: Follow PAYGO, get CBO scores before markups

Letter led by Rep. Sharice Davids asks House committee chairs to ensure legislation does not add to deficit

Ten moderate Democratic freshmen are sending a letter Wednesday to House committee chairs asking that their panels better adhere to the chamber’s rule for offsetting legislation that would add to the deficit.

Back in the majority for the first time in eight years, Democrats kicked off the 116th Congress by reinstating a pay-as-you-go, or PAYGO, provision in House rules. Under the provision, legislation that would increase the deficit must be offset by spending cuts or revenue increases.

(When Republicans took the majority from Democrats in 2011, they replaced PAYGO with cut-as-you-go, or CUTGO, which required deficit-increasing legislation be offset with only spending cuts, preventing the use of revenue increases as pay-fors.)

View the complete September 4 article by Lindsey McPherson on The Roll Call website here.

DFL Chair Statement on CBO Score for Senate Republican Health Care Bill

ST. PAUL, MN – Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Chair Ken Martin released the following statement today in response to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s assessment of Senate Republican’s proposed health care bill.

“Today’s nonpartisan report confirms what we already knew: The Republican’s health care bill hurts everyday Americans. This cruel bill would deprive 22 million Americans of the health care they need and deserve. For the most vulnerable—the disabled, the elderly, and those with pre-existing conditions—this bill would have devastating consequences. For those lucky enough to keep their insurance, it would raise costs while reducing quality. It would force middle-class families to pay more out of pocket, small businesses to pay higher premiums, and older Americans to pay more for less coverage.” Continue reading “DFL Chair Statement on CBO Score for Senate Republican Health Care Bill”

Senate Democrats shine light on health bill’s longer-term effect on Medicaid

The following article by Amy Goldstein was posted on the Washington Post website June 29, 2017:

In asking the Congressional Budget Office to take a longer view of Senate Republicans’ troubled health-care plan, the chamber’s Democrats maneuvered to train a spotlight on exactly what the GOP has sought to bury.

The Better Care Reconciliation Act relies on the time-honored political strategy of pressing a bill’s most profound effects years into the future — in this case, in severely constricting the main source of public health insurance for poor and vulnerable Americans.

Until Thursday, that scenario had been cloaked in arcane legislative language about per-capita caps and varying inflation adjustments. What Congress’s nonpartisan budget scorekeepers did, at the prodding of the Senate Finance Committee’s senior Democrat, is make clear that the GOP legislation would squeeze federal Medicaid spending by 35 percent by the end of two decades, compared with current law. Continue reading “Senate Democrats shine light on health bill’s longer-term effect on Medicaid”

Here’s why the CBO report is bad news for Republicans on health care

The following article by Paige Winfield Cunningham was posted on the Washington Post website May 25, 2017:

The final word is in: The House Republican bill to replace large parts of the Affordable Care Act would save $119 billion over a decade but cost 23 million Americans their health coverage.

Those figures are actually pretty similar to initial estimates for the House’s American Health Care Act — before Republicans added in some last-minute amendments changes.

Yet when the CBO released its score late Wednesday afternoon, it reignited a heated debate in Washington over the ongoing GOP effort to ditch big provisions in President Obama’s health-care law – an issue that took a temporary back seat amid all the drama over President Trump’s relationship with Russia and his treatment of former FBI Director James B. Comey. Continue reading “Here’s why the CBO report is bad news for Republicans on health care”

CBO gives a brutal diagnosis of GOP’s health plan

The following editorial was posted on the Star Tribune website May 25, 2017:

There’s no honor in keeping a promise to repeal Obamacare if replacement is a giant step backward.

House Speaker Paul Ryan at a March 7 news conference regarding the American Health Care Act. From left: Rep Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.; Ryan, and Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.

A point of clarification for Reps. Erik Paulsen, Tom Emmer and Jason Lewis, the three Minnesota Republican U.S. House members who voted for their party’s health reform plan: When you vowed on the campaign trail to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the expectation was that the replacement plan would improve upon former President Obama’s signature health care law.

But for the second time now, one of the nation’s most authoritative voices has confirmed that the GOP’s American Health Care Act (AHCA) would be a disastrous step backward when it comes to cost and quality coverage, particularly for older and sicker Americans. There’s no honor in keeping a promise to repeal the Obama law, which is how Lewis and others have defended their AHCA support, when the replacement would gut Medicaid, a safety-net program for children and the elderly, and would leave millions more Americans without health insurance. Continue reading “CBO gives a brutal diagnosis of GOP’s health plan”