WASHINGTON -- Republicans on Sunday dismissed an upcoming Congressional Budget Office analysis that's widely expected to conclude that more Americans will be uninsured under the party's proposed replacement for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, despite President Donald Trump's promise of universal coverage.
Meanwhile, some within the party hardened their positions against the Trump-backed legislation, the American Health Care Act. House conservatives vowed to block the bill as "Obamacare Lite" unless changes are made, even as a Republican senator warned that the plan would never pass as is, citing opposition from moderates.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said approving the bill as written would hurt Republicans politically because it would have "adverse consequences for millions of Americans" and wouldn't deliver on promises to reduce health care costs.
"Do not walk the plank and vote for a bill that cannot pass the Senate and then have to face the consequences of that vote," Cotton warned House Republicans. "If they vote for this bill, they're going to put the House majority at risk next year."
[INTERACTIVE: Compare new health care proposal with Affordable Care Act]
Speaking in television interviews, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump administration officials vowed to move forward on their proposed "repeal-and-replace" plan regardless of the Congressional Budget Office's findings, insisting that they can work past GOP disagreements and casting the issue as one of choice, in which consumers are freed of a government mandate to buy insurance.
The Congressional Budget Office is scheduled to release its cost analysis of the House GOP's plan early this week, including estimates on the number of people likely to be covered. The Brookings Institution estimated Thursday that about 15 million people would lose coverage under the replacement plan.
Ryan, R-Wis., said he fully expects the agency's analysis to find that fewer people will be covered under the GOP plan because it eliminates the government requirement to be insured.
"What we're trying to achieve here is bringing down the cost of care, bringing down the cost of insurance not through government mandates and monopolies but by having more choice and competition," he said. "We're not going to make an American do what they don't want to do."
[PRESIDENT TRUMP: Timeline, appointments, executive orders + guide to actions in first 100 days]
The GOP legislation would eliminate the current mandate that nearly all people in the United States carry insurance or face fines. It would use tax credits to help consumers buy health coverage. The bill also would expand health savings accounts, phase out an expansion of Medicaid and cap that program for the future, end some requirements for health plans, and scrap a number of taxes.
During the presidential campaign and as recently as January, Trump stressed his support for universal health coverage, saying his plan to replace former President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act would provide "insurance for everybody."
Defending the bill
On Sunday, top officials from Trump's administration appeared on political talk shows to discuss the merits of the bill and make the case that a Congressional Budget Office finding of fewer people covered would not necessarily mean that fewer people will be covered.
"If the CBO was right about Obamacare to begin with, there'd be 8 million more people on Obamacare today than there actually are," said Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, disputing the accuracy of the agency's data. "Sometimes we ask them to do stuff they're not capable of doing, and estimating the impact of a bill of this size probably isn't the best use of their time."
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said he firmly believed that "nobody will be worse off financially" under the health care overhaul. He said people will have choices as they select the kind of coverage they want as opposed to what the government forces them to buy.
"I believe and the president believes firmly that if you create a system that's accessible for everybody and you provide the financial feasibility for everybody to get coverage, that we have a great opportunity to increase coverage over where we are right now," he said.
"The president told me personally, 'We want to make this better for the American people,' and he's willing to negotiate," said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. and chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. "The art of the deal is not dead."
Gary Cohn, Trump's chief economic adviser, described past Congressional Budget Office analyses as "meaningless."
"We are offering coverage to everyone," he said. "If you are on Medicaid today, you're going to stay on Medicaid. If you are covered under an employee-sponsored plan, you're going to be continued to be covered under an employee-sponsored plan. If you fall into that middle group, we're going to provide tax credit so you can go out and buy a plan."
House conservatives remain skeptical of the plan.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, criticized the plan as an unacceptable form of "Obamacare Lite." He reiterated that he and other caucus members will seek to block the House bill unless there are additional changes. They want a quicker phaseout of Medicaid benefits and are opposed to proposed tax credits, calling them a new entitlement that will add to government costs.
Members of the caucus will meet with White House officials Tuesday. Jordan expressed hope that Trump is sincere in expressing a willingness to negotiate changes, criticizing Ryan for his "take it or leave it" stance.
"I'm not for this plan, and I think there's lot of opposition to this plan in the House and Senate," Jordan said. "Either work with us, or you don't end up getting the votes. That's the real choice here."
But pressuring the White House on the opposite side were moderate Republican governors and senators, who said Trump needed to allow for continuing Medicaid coverage for the poor.
"It's not like we love Obamacare. It means don't throw the baby out with the bathwater," said Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican. "Don't kill Medicaid expansion. And you've got to fix the exchange, but you have to have an ability to subsidize people at lower income levels."
"We need to have Democrats involved so that what we do is going to be not only significant but will last," Kasich added.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called the Republican plan "an absolute disaster" intended to create "a massive shift of wealth from working people and middle-income people to the very richest people in this country."
Ryan and Sanders spoke on CBS' Face the Nation, Price and Kasich appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, Meadows spoke on CNN's State of the Union, Mulvaney spoke on ABC's This Week and CNN's State of the Union, Cotton was on ABC's This Week, and Jordan and Cohn appeared on Fox News Sunday.
Wiretap inquiry
Separately, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., called for Trump to either prove his claim that Obama tapped the phones in Trump Tower during last year's election campaign or drop the accusation.
"The president has one of two choices, either retract or provide the information that the American people deserve," McCain said Sunday in an interview on State of the Union. "I have no reason to believe that the charge is true, but I also believe that the president of the United States could clear this up in a minute."
McCain is one of several top lawmakers in Congress to call on Trump to provide evidence of his claim that Obama ordered that Trump's communications be monitored. The senator's call for more information comes after a request from two leading members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for "copies of any warrant applications and court orders -- redacted as necessary ... related to wiretaps of President Trump, the Trump Campaign, or Trump Tower."
McCain said that accusing a former president of illegal wiretapping is something that should not be handled lightly.
"If the allegation is left out there, it undermines the confidence the American people have in the entire way that the government does business," McCain said.
Not all Republicans have put the responsibility of proof on Trump. Cotton agreed with Trump that Congress should take control of the investigation to safeguard sensitive intelligence.
"President Trump said last weekend that he wanted the intelligence committees in the Senate and the House to take up this matter as part of a broader inquiry into Russia's activities in our political system last year. We're going to do that," Cotton said Sunday.
"Through a deliberate and careful process of examining all the intelligence at issue here, and then determining with the executive branch what we can declassify, I think the intelligence committees are in the best position to make those decisions," the senator added.
Information for this article was contributed by Hope Yen of The Associated Press; by Anna Edney, Zachary Tracer, Mark Niquette and Ben Brody of Bloomberg News; and by Kelsey Snell of The Washington Post.
A Section on 03/13/2017