EDITORIAL: CBO confirms the disaster that is Republicare

March 15--What's most astonishing about the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House Republicans' health care plan is not the estimate that it would increase the ranks of the uninsured by 24 million over the next decade. Nor is it the savage price increases the bill would impose on low-income older Americans seeking to buy insurance. Nor is it the casual cruelty of cutting Medicaid services to 14 million Americans after 2020.

What's most astonishing is the blatant dishonesty of Republican leaders who Tuesday either denied that any of this would occur, or blithely skated past it.

--House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said that the report "actually exceeded my expectations." He told Fox News that the reason many of the 14 million Americans who would lose coverage when the bill takes effect in 2018 is not because they won't be able to afford it, but because the mandate requiring people to be insured will go away. Americans will have more choice, he said. For example, a 64-year-old making $26,500 could choose between paying $14,600 for insurance or eating and paying rent. Some choice.

--"I don't believe the facts are correct," White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told MSNBC on Tuesday. He said this even though the Office of Management and Budget that he heads had predicted the number would be even worse -- 26 million instead of 24 million.

--On NBC's "Today" show, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price stood by President Donald Trump's promise of insurance for everybody as "absolutely right." But when asked if the House plan met that goal, Price veered off into a criticism of Obamacare.

Ryan was happy to point out that the CBO estimated that the bill would cut the deficit by $337 billion over 10 years. He neglected the big reason: Eliminating $883 billion in Obamacare taxes. This hugely benefit households with incomes of $1 million a year or more. And Ryan wants more tax cuts for them.

No one is arguing that Obamacare is perfect. People are sicker than insurance companies in the individual marketplace anticipated. Congress could fix that by creating a public option to drive competition in underserved markets.

But that would have to be paid for with tax dollars, just as Obamacare is, just as a "Medicaid for Everyone" single-payer plan would. And because people at the top of the income ladder have reaped a disproportionate share of economic gains since 1980, they'd pay a disproportionate share of the cost.

These people, not working-class Americans, are the people whom Ryan and the House Republicans are working for and dissembling for. They are the GOP donor base. That's what the dissatisfaction with Obamacare is all about. It's never been about who's covered. It's about who pays.

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