White House officials on Sunday preemptively downplayed the looming Congressional Budget Office analysis of Republicans’ long-awaited Obamacare replacement bill, saying the independent office may not be capable of handling such a large, complex piece of legislation.
Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the CBO has gotten it wrong in the past with regard to health care.
He disputed other analyses that have said the bill will reduce coverage and increase costs, and said that if the CBO research comes to the same conclusions, Americans shouldn’t necessarily believe it.
“If the CBO was right about Obamacare to begin with, there’d be 8 million more people on Obamacare today than there actually are,” Mr. Mulvaney said. “So I love the folks at the CBO, they work really hard, they do, but 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.”
The CBO analysis of the health care bill, which already has been introduced in the House, is expected this week.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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