The Truth About the CBO Report: Media Spin Ignores These Key Facts

CBN
03-14-2017

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Democrats and the mainstream news media have kicked their attacks into overdrive after a big announcement that the GOP health care legislation will leave many without insurance.

The Congressional Budget Office announced Monday that the replacement of Obamacare would leave 14 million Americans uninsured by next year and 24 million uninsured in the next decade.

"How can they look their constituents in the eye when they say to them '24 million of you will no longer have coverage,'" House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said.

The big three nightly news networks echoed that cry, warning that 24 million people will lose insurance if the law passes. But the Media Research Center points out they chose to ignore a key part of the CBO's report.

MRC reports what it said:

"Most of that increase would stem from repealing the penalties associated with the individual mandate. Some of those people would choose not to have insurance because they chose to be covered by insurance under current law only to avoid paying the penalties, and some people would forgo insurance in response to higher premiums."

In other words, many of those people will drop insurance because they would no longer be forced to buy it against their will.

Average premiums are said to rise as much as 20 percent in 2018 and 2019 before lowering years after.

But the CBO pointed out something about that which was quite significant, and also ignored:

"Even though the new tax credits would be structured differently from the current subsidies and would generally be less generous for those receiving subsidies under current law, the other changes would, in the agencies' view, lower average premiums enough to attract a sufficient number of relatively healthy people to stabilize the market."

The Trump administration is speaking out against the media spin about the CBO report.

And President Trump is reminding Americans that Obamacare is not working, and needs to be fixed.

"Obamacare all of a sudden the last couple of weeks is getting a false rap that maybe it's OK. It's not OK," the president said Monday.

"It's a disaster, and people understand that. It's failed, and it's imploding. And if we let it go for another year, it'll totally implode," he said.

Meanwhile, the CBO also reports the bill would lower federal deficits by $337 billion over 10 years, after cuts to Medicaid.

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