If the CBO report finds that Trumpcare doesn’t save $2 billion, Trump and Republicans will look like idiots for celebrating, because the House will have to vote on the health care bill again.
Bloomberg laid out why Republicans may have to vote again on health care:
According to several aides and other procedural experts, if Republicans send the bill to the Senate now and the CBO later concludes it doesn’t save at least $2 billion, it would doom the bill and Republicans would have to start their repeal effort all over with a new budget resolution. Congressional rules would likely prevent Republicans from fixing the bill after it’s in the Senate, the aides said.
If Republican leaders hold onto the bill until the CBO report is released, then Ryan and his team could still redo it if necessary. That would require at least one more House vote of some sort. That vote could be cloaked in some kind of arcane procedural move, but it would still be depicted as a proxy for yet another vote on the same bill — and reluctant Republicans will once again be forced to decide whether to back it. Only this time, they would also be saddled with the CBO’s latest findings about the bill’s costs and impacts.
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Trump and his party will look fools after they held a victory celebration at the White House only to have to come back and vote on the bill again or start the process from the beginning. Paul Ryan isn’t going to send the bill to the Senate before the CBO report comes in, but if the scoring finds that all of the additions to legislation that were needed to get is passed cut into the projected savings by more than $150 billion, House Republicans will face another brutal vote on health care before they can officially send the bill to the Senate.
The CBO score might make it more difficult for Republicans to support the bill. Republicans are going to have to cast another vote for a bill that is wildly unpopular and will throw tens of millions of Americans off of their health insurance.
This celebration in the Rose Garden could down in history and Trump and Ryan’s “Mission Accomplished” moment:
https://youtu.be/zcXnF4zM9-g
More health care votes will also remind voters of why they should support a Democratic House takeover in 2018.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
