Tom Price has hope for Obamacare repeal, Nancy Pelosi and Rand Paul don't
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price expressed confidence Sunday that the House GOP's health-care reform bill to overhaul the Affordable Care Act will pass Congress.
The American Healthcare Act, backed by the Trump administration, faces opposition within the GOP. Some say it doesn’t go far enough in dismantling Obamacare, while others worry that its limits to Medicaid would hurt those with low incomes.
“This is what tough legislation looks like, so it’s not unusual to have this give-and-take and this back-and-forth,” Price said on ABC’s This Week. “I’m confident that as we move forward, we’ll be able to move all portions of the plan.”
Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, dismissed Price’s optimism on the same show. Members of the Republican’s House Freedom Caucus are demanding the full repeal of Obamacare. The current bill is unlikely to attract their support, Paul said. “I think there's enough conservatives that don't want Obamacare Lite,” Paul said. “And I think that they do not fix the problem.”
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The Republican bill is also unlikely to attract any Democratic support. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she would work with Republicans to reform Obamacare, but she derided the GOP’s proposal. “What they have put forth is a terrible bill,” Pelosi said on CBS’ Face the Nation.
The House Republican bill would leave 24 million fewer Americans with health insurance by 2026, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget office. The bill is expected to raise the average premiums before 2020, and then lower them after that, the CBO projected. It would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion from 2017 to 2026. Most of the savings would come from reductions in Medicaid and from eliminating the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies for low-income Americans to buy insurance.
Four Republican governors, including John Kasich of Ohio, last week announced their opposition to the GOP plan, saying it does not give them the flexibility or resources they need to cover low-income residents.
