Paul Ryan Says He’s ‘Encouraged’ by CBO Report Showing 24 Million Losing Insurance

See what you make of this, and it comes in two parts: First, the new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report projects that thanks to the American Health Care Act there will be 14 million fewer people having insurance by 2018 and 24 million by 2026.

Second, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) had this reaction:

“I think if you read this entire report, I’m pretty encouraged by it.

“And it actually exceeded my expectations.”

What, he was only hoping for 22 million to lose their medical insurance?

As Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert says,

Ryan seems to be interpreting the evidence to mean those people simply don’t want health insurance and would prefer to sicken and die instead:

“We’re saying the government’s not going to force people to buy something that they don’t want to buy.

“And if we end an ObamaCare mandate that says you must buy this government one-size-fits-all plan, guess what? People aren’t going to buy that.”

Of course, that’s not what’s happening at all. Ryan admitted,

“I think they sort of overestimated the uninsured number…but I do believe that if we’re not going to force people to buy something they don’t want to buy, they won’t buy it, and that’s kind of obvious.”

While Newt Gingrich was excoriating the CBO report, Paul Ryan was celebrating it as though it were the crowning achievement of his career (granted, it’s a career with few actual achievements).

AM Joy’s Joy Reid called this “bluffing and fibbing” his way through the “CBO fiasco.”

Paul Krugman said “Wow. Not sure whether this is pathetic or just disgusting. Probably both.” Definitely both.

Whatever you call it, is was an interesting approach: Newt Gingrich losing his sh*t over numbers he didn’t like, and Paul Ryan just pretending, publicly at least, that those numbers didn’t exist (while probably secretly rubbing his hands in glee).

Ryan continued his spin by maintaining that the CBO report “gives us even more room to work on to make good fine tuning, finishing touches on this bill.”

When I hear something like that, all I can see is Torquemada tightening the screws and heating his torture implements on the fire.

If Ryan is encouraged by the CBO report, it’s frightening to think just how diabolical the GOP’s “finishing touches” will be. Uninsured full body cavity searches all around, probably.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.