How Republicans Might Fudge the Numbers to Make Their Health Care Bill Seem Less Irresponsible – New York Magazine

Ad will collapse in seconds CLOSE March 9, 2017 03/09/2017 10:15 a.m. By Ed Kilgore

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There have been a lot of raised eyebrows about congressional Republicans rushing out an Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill before it could be scored that is, evaluated for its impact on federal spending and revenues and health-care coverage by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Generally, CBO scoring would be a foundational step before trying to advance legislation significantly overhauling an industry that constitutes 20 percent of the national economy. One reason for the hastiness is that Republicans wanted to get something out there before its members go home for a long and potentially protest-filled Easter recess and perhaps come back gun-shy. Another is that they are on a self-imposed (and potentially self-imploding) timetable to get health care out of the way so they can deal with other legislative priorities, including a giant tax-cut bill.

But it is the third reason for not waiting on CBO that is looking most compelling right now: Republicans are terrified that CBOs numbers will paint a disastrous picture of the American Health Care Acts impact. The bill has problems enough without being described by Congresss own hirelings as a bill that blows up budget deficits, throws many millions of people out of their health insurance, and, perhaps most importantly, undermines the tax cuts and defense-spending increases Republicans are itching to enact by setting a baseline that already looks bad.

Indeed, as Jennifer Haberkorn reports, there is so much Republican angst over what CBO might say that there is a sudden barrage of advance criticism of the agency, which is likely to reveal its score later this week or early next week:

If you go back to what CBO predicted would be covered on the exchanges today [under the ACA] theyre only off by only a two-to-one ratio, Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) told reporters. CBO said 21 million projected would be covered, but only 10 million people are covered.

When former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for the abolition of CBO back in January, most observers probably chuckled at the old bomb-thrower insisting that an objective assessment of GOP plans would screw everything up. Now thats rapidly becoming the conventional wisdom. Keep in mind that Republicans, after taking control of both congressional chambers in 2014, hired CBOs current director, George W. Bush administration veteran Keith Hall. Its safe to say that Hall hardly resembles Gingrichs description of CBO as a left-wing, corrupt, bureaucratic defender of big government and liberalism.

So whats the solution? Republicans seem to have found an alternative source of authoritative-sounding numbers that is more ideologically reliable: the Office of Management and Budget, which is directly under the control of the president.

This helps explain why Trumps OMB director, Mick Mulvaney, is suddenly being described as a player in the GOPs very crowded health-care-policy arena. As budget maven Stan Collender pointed out when Gingrich proposed eliminating CBO, such a step would quite literally turn the clock back to those pre-1974 days when OMB was the only scoring entity, and Congress had no independent source of information. In the end Congress can use whatever numbers it chooses. But trying to boost the credibility of its agenda by cooking the books is probably not going to be a very persuasive approach.

One would normally think Mulvaney had enough on his plate developing Trumps first budget, for example without having to leap into the middle of the health-care fray. Thats how panicked Republicans have become by the consequences of their shoddy work on repealing and replacing Obamacare. Its one thing to work the refs when you are in danger of losing a game. Its another thing altogether to fire and replace the scorekeeper while the balls in play.

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How Republicans Might Fudge the Numbers to Make Their Health Care Bill Seem Less Irresponsible - New York Magazine