Lawmakers react after report on health care bill

May 26--Indiana lawmakers weighed in on the American Health Care Act after the Congressional Budget Office released its official report on the controversial health care bill.

Republican U.S. Sen. Todd Young, who had declined to comment on the proposed legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act while it was in the U.S. House of Representatives, made it clear Thursday that the version approved by the House would not be the version he would be voting on.

"The Senate will be writing its own bill, not voting on the House version. Senator Young has been working with both Republicans and Democrats to find a suitable replacement for Obamacare, which has failed Hoosiers and will soon collapse under its own weight," Young's Indiana communications director, Jay Kenworthy, said in a statement.

Kenworthy added that there was no timeline in place for a completed draft of the legislation, and that Young does not have any town hall-style meetings planned in the Bloomington area.

U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly has frequently and vocally opposed the AHCA. The Democrat has also been one of a few Senate moderates working across party lines to improve the current health care system, rather than repeal and replace the ACA, also known as Obamacare. President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have championed the repeal and replace approach, as did House Speaker Paul Ryan.

"The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis confirms that this bill would make health care more expensive and harder to access, particularly for those with pre-existing conditions, children, older Hoosiers and seniors," Donnelly said in a statement Wednesday evening. "As I have long said, I believe we need to join together to improve our health care system. I am calling on the (Trump) administration to stop undermining and destabilizing the insurance marketplace and work together with us to make health care more affordable."

The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday projected that if the House Republicans' AHCA passed into law as written, it would result in 23 million more uninsured Americans over a decade and would cut the deficit by $119 billion during that same period. The CBO is a federal agency within the legislative branch of the government that provides nonpartisan budget and economic information to Congress. Many members of Congress base their decisions, at least in part, on the potential effects of a piece of legislation as analyzed by the CBO.

The U.S. House passed the bill several weeks ago, before the report was released.

U.S. Rep. Trey Hollingsworth, a Republican, voted "Yes" on the measure along party lines. In a statement after the vote, he said "The passage of the American Health Care Act brings relief as that burden is lifted and Obamacare begins to unravel and fall away. The American Health Care Act is built upon the foundation of conservative principles, such as free-market solutions, returning power to the states and protecting those Americans with pre-existing conditions."

Hollingsworth said on Thursday that he was sticking by his vote and, in so doing, fulfilling a mandate Hoosier voters gave him last November. Hollingsworth represents Indiana's 9th Congressional District, which includes Monroe, Brown and Lawrence counties.

"The CBO was famously wrong when they said that Obamacare would cost $800 billion when, in reality, it turned out to cost $2 trillion," Hollingsworth said in an emailed statement. "Additionally, the CBO had little to say when Hoosiers lost their health insurance as a result of Obamacare or could no longer see the doctor of their choice. I promised the Hoosiers of Indiana's 9th District that I would go to Washington and fight for a free-market replacement to the disaster that is Obamacare, and that is exactly what I have done."

Senate Budget Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, whose committee oversees the budget process that the GOP is using to fast-track the repeal effort through the U.S. Senate, has started drafting legislation, according to Politico. Enzi declined to discuss a timetable, Politico reported, but after questioning said he hoped to have a draft to show colleagues after the Memorial Day week recess.

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