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HEALTH REFORM: CBO Confirms GOP Bill Offers Scant Coverage
Last night, the Congressional Budget Office released a preliminary analysis of the House Republican health care bill. The bill focuses mostly on cost and repackages a lot of the conservative ideas that have been around for years (and never came to fruition even while Republicans held the torch.)
According to the CBO, by 2019, the Republican bill would only extend health coverage to three million more Americans and reduce the federal deficit by $68 billion. In comparison, by 2019, the House Democratic bill would insure 36 million more Americans and reduce the federal deficit by $104 billion.
The Republican bill would only cost $61 billion over the next ten years (significantly less than the $1.1 trillion Democratic option) and could potentially reduce premiums for some Americans who currently have insurance. (See the CBO Director's Blog -- some premiums could come down in the small and individual markets. But it would still be hard for sick people or those with pre-existing conditions to get covered at all, let alone get affordable coverage).
The Republican bill does not eliminate discrimination based on pre-existing conditions. It allows insurers to "cherry-pick" healthy consumers. It's "Association Health Plans" lets small businesses pool together to buy insurance -- but strips that insurance of many state and consumer protections. The new insurance exchanges in the Democratic legislation would create even larger pools, and add rather than subtract protections.
The Republicans never claimed that their alternative would try to expand coverage to all Americans, but Rep. George Miller (D-CA) explains that, "Tonight the CBO confirmed that the Republicans' only solution for health reform is to preserve the status quo. It will leave 52 million Americans literally out in the cold, does nothing to help low-income and middle-class families afford quality health care, and protects insurance companies' power to deny claims and stand between patients and their doctors."
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