No PowerPoint Needed: Experts – Left, Right, and Center – Know That the Paul Ryan-Donald Trump Health Care Bill Is a Train Wreck

Date: March 9, 2017

Contact: Matt House, (202) 224-2939

No PowerPoint Needed: Experts - Left, Right, and Center - Know That the Paul Ryan-Donald Trump Health Care Bill Is a Train Wreck

HEALTH POLICY EXPERTS ACROSS THE SPECTRUM: "THIS BILL IS A TRAIN WRECK WAITING TO HAPPEN."

James Capretta, Milton Friedman Chair at American Enterprise Institute: "In combination, the policies in the House bill would lead to a very large increase in the number of Americans without health insurance. It is true that all Americans could get insurance if they wanted to, but many households will see their options get worse under this plan compared to the ACA, not better. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is sure to make these points when its estimate of the plan is released in the coming days." [AEI, 3/8/17 ]

Avik Roy, Health Care Policy Advisor for Mitt Romney 2012 Presidential Campaign: "Leading House Republicans have included a number of transformative and consequential reforms in their American Health Care Act, the full text of which was published Monday evening. But those reforms are overshadowed by the bill's stubborn desire to make health insurance unaffordable for millions of Americans, and trap millions more in poverty."... "The CBO is likely to score the AHCA as covering around 20 million fewer Americans than Obamacare. There are flaws in the way the CBO models health reform legislation, but the AHCA itself contains enough flaws that there can be little doubt that the plan will price millions out of the health insurance market. Expanding subsidies for high earners, and cutting health coverage off from the working poor: it sounds like a left-wing caricature of mustache-twirling, top-hatted Republican fat cats. But not today." [Forbes, 3/7/17 ]

Professor David Cutler, Harvard University, John Bertko, chief actuary for Covered California, and Topher Spiro and Emily Gee, Center for American Progress: "We estimate that the bill would increase costs for the average enrollee by $1,542, for the year, if the bill were in effect today. In 2020, the bill would increase costs for the average enrollee by $2,409.... As many have pointed out, and as the CBO score will clearly show, the Republican bill would cause millions of people to lose their coverage -- but it would also increase costs significantly for those who remain insured." [Vox, 3/7/17 ]

Matthew Fiedler, the Brookings Institution: "Some parts of the country will see very large financial hits even if they retain coverage." [NBC News, 3/8/17 ]

Michael F. Cannon, Cato Institute: "This bill is a train wreck waiting to happen."... "Republicans don't seem to have any concept of the quagmire they are about to enter with this bill."... "The leadership bill therefore creates the potential, if not the certainty, of a series of crises that Congress will need address, and that will crowd out other GOP priorities, in late 2017 before the 2018 plan year begins, and again leading up to the 2018 elections. If Congress gets health reform wrong on its first try, health reform could consume most of President Trump's first term." [Cato, 3/7/17 ]

Professor Aaron Carrol, Indiana University School of Medicine: "It will create adverse selection." [NBC News, 3/8/17 ]

Professor Scott Sumner, Mercatus Institution: "It takes a certain ingenuity to simultaneously make the poverty trap worse, while making the benefit scheme more regressive." [Library of Economics and Liberty, 3/7/17 ]

Bob Laszewski, Health Policy Associates: "It won't work." [Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review, 3/7/17 ]