As Republicans struggle to find the votes to repeal Obamacare and strip insurance from millions of Americans, a revised Congressional Budget Office estimate of just how terrible the bill has squeaked through. As a result of the changes arch-conservative Republicans have been making, they now estimate the effects to be even worse.
The CBO found that this version of the healthcare plan contains significantly less deficit reduction than the original but would lead to essentially the same levels of coverage losses and premium increases.
The legislation would reduce the deficit by $150 billion over 10 years, down from $337 billion in the original legislation, the report said. The plan would still result in 24 million more people being uninsured in 2026, a finding that has been a rallying cry for Democrats.
Half the budget savings of the first version, with the same terrible effects on coverage.
The key budgetary difference between this iteration of the bill and the last: Republicans have kept the same tax cuts for wealthy Americans, but moved them up a year to happen sooner. It will still result in the same millions of Americans losing access to health insurance, however, because none of them made an effort to revise those parts.
This also doesn't take into account changes Republicans are fighting over today, as they struggle to win over Republican hardliners with even more draconian cuts. But this new CBO estimate isn't going to do much to convince either frightened "moderates" wary of screwing their constituents or "Freedom Caucus" members who despise the bill for not going even farther.