Voters Won’t Ignore This CBO Score
I mean, I sure do like those budget numbers. On the other hand, 24 million is a whole lot of folks. Republicans are going to stand accused of taking insurance away from a lot of needy people in order to cut nearly a trillion dollars worth of taxes. And in fairness, that is kind of what this bill does.
.. According to the CBO, under Obamacare, a 64-year-old making 450 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $53,000 a year, can expect to pay $15,300 a year for a plan that covers 65% of their expected medical expenses.
You can easily see why someone in that situation would be reluctant to pay that much for insurance.
.. Moreover, many of the folks who will see their insurance options shrink are those older white voters in rural districts who helped put Trump over the top. The merely middle aged won’t get hurt too badly, though they, too, will see their premiums go up. But the older, not-poor-but-sure-not-rich folks? They get creamed.
.. We do not rely on CBO scores because they are particularly accurate, but because they are consistent, allowing us to compare bills to each other — and because they provide an exceptionally useful check on the wildly overoptimistic estimates that politicians would produce on their own.
.. We could argue about whether the insurance markets are going to stabilize with a younger, healthier pool, as the CBO suggests, or whether I’m right that there’s a substantial risk they won’t stabilize and will instead start spiraling towards death.