Maine Sen. Angus King said Tuesday he would not even consider voting on the Republicans’ revised health insurance without a score from the Congressional Budget Office.
“If I’m a House member from even a marginally competitive district, I’m not sure I want to make potentially a career-ending vote on something the Congressional Budget Office hasn’t even looked at yet,” Mr. King said on CNN. “I mean, that first bill was a disaster and I haven’t seen much that would improve it.”
He added, “I would never vote this bill without it getting a score.”
The Maine independent also said that his state’s health care system is not a model that the country can use because the proposed health care budget would not be able to cover everything Maine’s system offers.
“If you take the Maine plan and scale it up nationally, it would be something like $4-5 billion a year,” he said. “They’re proposing $15 billion over nine years. It’s almost two-thirds below what would be adequate to do it even if you were replicating the Maine plan.”
House Republicans are still facing criticism of their health care plan for failing to protect those with pre-existing conditions, which they say will be addressed once it’s passed on to the Senate.
• Sally Persons can be reached at spersons@washingtontimes.com.
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