Healthcare Expert Predicts Trump Will Win Over Naysayers

Healthcare policy expert Dr. Betsy McCaughey said after studying the entire Obamacare replacement bill, she concludes it "has everything going for it and it should pass." 

The former New York state lieutenant governor and author of the bestseller, Beating Obamacare, believes in the days ahead President Donald Trump will flex his dealmaking muscle enough to convince Republicans who oppose the bill to get on board.  

Meanwhile, she balked at several components of the Congressional Budget Office predictions about the bill.  "The CBO is customarily very good at estimating budget numbers.  It's called the Congressional Budget Office.  But it's not very good at predicting human behavior," she said.

For example, she said the notion that more than 20 million people will "lose" their insurance is vastly misleading.  She said people without insurance will be making a choice not to have it because they don't want it.  "It's a matter of freedom," she said, pointing out that the mandate to purchase insurance is one of the most objectionable aspects of Obamacare.  

She said the Obamacare replacement plan will enourage more employers to offer health care insurance to their employees because they will be able to offer their employers less expensive plans for their employees than the kinds of plans Obamacare mandated. 

McCaughey said the CBO prediction that defunding Planned Parenthood will deprive low-income women of birth control and therefore result in "thousands of births" is untrue.  "They can certainly seek Ob-Gyn services in many other places, including community health clinics," she said.

McCaughey agrees the bill will save more than 300 billion taxpayer dollars but says the biggest selling point is the fact that premiums will be lower.