Don't Panic Over the CBO Repeal Report

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), at the request of Senate Democrats, recently released a report estimating the effects of a reconciliation bill passed in 2015 but vetoed by President Obama (HR 3762). The bill would repeal the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) individual and employer mandates and, after a two-year delay, repeal the ACA's Medicaid expansion and subsidies for insurance purchased on the ACA exchanges. The predicted results are dire but no one should pay too much attention. No one is proposing re-passing HR 3762 without other measures and CBO's predictions are simply not believable.