CBO stands for Congressional Budget Office. The CBO is a non-partisan office that serves Congress by performing independent analyses of proposed legislation. In other words, when Congress is considering a bill to say, change health care, the CBO analyzes the bill and tries to estimate how much the bill will cost, who is affected, and how.
What does the CBO say about the latest version of the American Health Care Act?
Depends on who you are reading/listening to.
23 million more uninsured!Reduces deficit by $119 billion! Premiums are lower. No, premiums are higher!
From a disparities perspective, the CBO score reflects what was already present in the prior analysis of the AHCA:
- Those who with lower incomes, and are older and sicker, will lose coverage.
- All the maneuvering before the bill was passed didn’t change the proposed cuts of $843 billion from Medicaid –> 14 million will lose Medicaid coverage
- CBO estimates that for low-income adults: 21-year-olds see a small drop in premiums, from $1700 to $1250. However, it’s not as if young adults are going to paying less for the same thing. They will pay less for less.
- 64-year-olds, on the other hand, see an increase anywhere from $13,600 to $16,100. This is for someone making $26,500 a year, i.e. more than half their income would go to health insurance, with possibly fewer benefits.
- Final score: deficit down, disparities up.