Aides to US President Donald Trump have attacked the credibility of the nonpartisan agency that will analyse the costs of a replacement for Obamacare, as the White House seeks to quell opposition from many Republicans.
The Congressional Budget Office, which provides official estimates of the budget impact of proposed legislation, is expected to issue a report as early as Monday that will assess the healthcare legislation put forth by Republican House of Representatives leaders.
The report could influence sentiment towards a bill that is already under fire from both Democrats and many conservative Republicans, especially if it suggests the legislation would reduce the number of Americans with health coverage or that it would worsen US budget deficits.
In a series of television interviews, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney and top White House economic adviser Gary Cohn said that the CBO is focusing on the wrong metrics with the estimates it will provide on the number of people who are insured. Cohn and Mulvaney said CBO should instead should analyse whether patients can actually afford to go to a doctor.
"I love the folks at the CBO, they work really hard, they do, but 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," Mulvaney told This Week.
Speaking on Fox News, Cohn said: "We will see what the score is, in fact in the past, the CBO score has really been meaningless."
"They've said that many more people will be insured than are actually insured. But when we get the CBO score we'll deal with that."
The Trump administration's criticisms of the CBO are unusual. Prior administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have steered clear of attacking the credibility of the agency, which many lawmakers regard as a neutral arbiter. The CBO's current director, Keith Hall, was appointed by Republicans in 2015.
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