GOP Questions Agencys Health-Plan Cost Analysis Prior to Release
Source: WSJ
This week, the Congressional Budget Office will find itself at the center of Washington’s fierce political storm over health-care policy, and some Republicans anxious to dismantle the Affordable Care Act have taken pre-emptive shots at the agency’s credibility.
It is familiar terrain for the nonpartisan agency, and interviews with former directors appointed by both political parties and even some of its critics in Congress suggest the verbal assaults would do little to diminish the office’s stature as the primary scorekeeper of American fiscal policy.
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The particular estimates that could be in focus this week: CBO’s “scoring” of how many Americans stand to lose health insurance under the Republican move to dismantle the ACA. In a report last week, the Brookings Institution studied previous CBO evaluations of health-care legislation and concluded the agency might project that 15 million people would lose insurance under the new bill.
Ahead of that CBO “score” of the bill, Republicans have taken shots at the office, citing what they say were inaccurate estimates earlier this decade of how many people would be covered under the ACA. White House spokesman Sean Spicer last week said: “If you’re looking to the CBO for accuracy, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
On Sunday, Gary Cohn, director of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council, said on Fox News that CBO health estimates have “really been meaningless” in the past. “They’ve said that many more people will be insured that are actually insured.” On NBC Sunday, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said the CBO “has been very adept in not providing appropriate coverage statistics.”
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/cbo-draws-republicans-pre-emptive-ire-over-health-bill-report-1489417414
Sure, they don't trust stats - like unemployment data - until.... they do.
= new reply since forum marked as read
it goes off of revenue neutral reconciliation with a simple Senate majority to 60 plus threshold - certain doom! 
