Senate Democrats on Monday read Republicans the riot act over the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the Senate bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, which would leave tens of millions uninsured in years to come.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the non-partisan CBO’s analysis a “jaw-dropping report” on a bill he said would impose “higher costs for less care” and leave “tens of millions of Americans left without any insurance.”
“For weeks Senate Republicans tried to tell us that their bill would be better than the House bill,” he said at a press conference. “CBO’s report today makes clear that this bill is every bit as mean.”
According to the CBO’s analysis of the Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act, 22 million fewer people would have health insurance by 2026 if the bill was passed, 15 million of whom would lose coverage by 2018.
Schumer said the CBO report “should be the end of the road for Trumpcare,” but added that he expects Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to “attempt to coerce the votes of his reluctant Republican colleagues.”
“Republicans would be wise to read it like a giant stop sign,” he said. “The truth is the Republicans cannot excise the rotten core at the center of their health care bill, no matter what tweaks they add.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) called the bill a “massive giveaway to special interests in the health care industry.”
“Today’s CBO report makes it clearer than ever just how mean Trumpcare is and why,” she said. “This certainly isn’t the way we should be writing a bill that would have so much impact on the health and financial security of people across our country.”
Murray also said she “fully” expects McConnell to “twist arms and cut backroom deals” to corral enough votes to pass the bill.
“I just hope that Republicans who are rightly concerned about the impact Trumpcare would have will stand strong for their constituents, take a close look at the facts on the table, recognize it is time to change course, and drop this Trumpcare once and for all,” she said.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said the bill would “hit millions of working people and seniors like a wrecking ball.”
“The fact is, cuts of this magnitude will rip through the fabric of American society,” he said. “This is another big step back to the days when health care in America was for the healthy and the wealthy.”
He called the bill “a big, big tax cut at the expense of working people and seniors.”
“It’s an ideological document to please the hard right,” Schumer added. “Unfortunately, it badly hurts the American people.”
