Legislative Malpractice: the CBO Scores the American Health Care Act

The Congressional Budget Office’s cost estimate of the American Health Care Act confirms what health‐​policy scholars have known for months: the AHCA is bad health policy that will come back to haunt its Republican supporters.


Premiums on the individual market have risen an average of 105 percent since ObamaCare took effect. Maryland’s largest insurer has requested rate hikes for 2018 that average 52 percent. Yet the CBO estimates the AHCA would saddle voters with two additional premium increases before the mid‐​term elections—a further 20 percent increase in 2018, plus another 5 percent just before Election Day. Even worse, the bill’s ham‐​handed modifications to ObamaCare’s most harmful regulations would accelerate the race to the bottom that ObamaCare has begun. Voters will blame Republicans for their skyrocketing premiums and lousy coverage, deepening what appear to be inevitable GOP losses in 2018.


Free‐​market reforms would reduce premiums by up to 90 percent, make access to care more secure for people who develop expensive medical conditions, reduce taxes and health care prices, and give states the ability and flexibility to cover preexisting conditions. It might even give the GOP’s base a reason to go to the polls in 2018.


The AHCA is not free‐​market reform.