Republicans introduced the replacement legislation and pushed it through two House committees on party-line votes, members of Trump's Cabinet claimed more Americans would be able to get health care at a reduced cost and no one would be worse off.
At the same time, they signaled their willingness to accept changes needed to accommodate conservatives in the House and Senate who have accused their leaders of crafting a bill too much in the mold of the Affordable Care Act.
The rosy forecasts will come up against estimates on coverage and cost from Congress' official scorekeeping agency as early as Monday. Health care analysts expect the budget office — headed by a Republican appointee —to project that millions of people who gained health insurance under former President Obama's Affordable Care Act will lose it under the GOP plan.
But Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price preemptively rejected such an assessment Sunday. Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, the former House Budget Committee chairman said the Republican bill would lead to "more people covered than are covered right now, and at an average cost that is less."
And Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told ABC's This Week that the "truly indigent" will not lose out, as liberal interest groups charge. "Medicaid is still there," he said. "In fact, we think it’s going to be even better." Mulvaney also argued that CBO can't really produce a meaningful cost estimate of such sweeping legislation. "Sometimes we ask them to do stuff they’re not capable of doing, and estimating the impact of a bill of this size probably isn’t the best use of their time," he said.
Meanwhile, conservative lawmakers continued to criticize their own party's bill, led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who flatly predicted that passage in the House this spring could jeopardize Republicans' majority there in the 2018 mid-term elections.
"I would say to my friends in the House of Representatives, with whom I served, do not walk the plank and vote for a bill that cannot pass the Senate and then have to face the consequences of that vote," Cotton said on ABC.
The plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, would retain some provisions of Obama's signature domestic policy achievement, including the requirement that insurers cover those with pre-existing conditions. But it would phase out the expansion of Medicaid in 2020 — conservatives want to move up the date to the end of this year — while altering the system of tax credits and repealing penalties for those who do not buy insurance.
The bill cleared two House committees last week after marathon sessions. It still must go through two more House committees before reaching the floor, possibly by the end of March. Then it would go to the Senate, and any differences would have to be reconciled before it reached President Trump's desk.