At this point, with federal agencies already having spent billions to make sure Obamacare hits its implementation deadline of Jan. 1, 2014, would it be economically feasible for House Republicans to continue to push for the law’s repeal?
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) thinks not.
With construction of the health insurance exchanges nearing completion and insurance companies beginning to submit 2014 policy proposals to states, Republicans are continuing to push legislation through the House in an attempt to repeal Obamacare.
Republicans’ latest bill is entitled H.R. 45: To repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.
On May 16, it passed the House by a vote of 226 to 192.
The bill is part of a long line of bills attempting to repeal Obamacare that have passed the House recently. And like those to come before it, the bill’s expected to die in the Senate.
Requested CBO cost estimate
But what makes this bill noteworthy is that prior to taking up the bill, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) put in a request to the CBO asking it to provide a cost estimate for the legislation.
In a nutshell, Ryan’s request asked the CBO what it would cost to repeal Obamacare.
The CBO denied his request, stating that it would take resources away from completing its analysis of President Obama’s latest budgetary proposals.
But the CBO did point to estimates it — along with the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) — prepared for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) last July on the budgetary impact of repealing the law.
The CBO said that although it hasn’t updated its projections since July, it said that it would expect similar results were it to do so in response to Ryan’s request.
Cost: $100 billion
Last July, the CBO said … repealing the ACA (Affordable Care Act) would affect direct spending and revenues in ways resulting in a net increase in budget deficits of $109 billion over the 2013–2022 period.
Why the $109 billion price tag? Because any savings achieved from eliminating the insurance coverage mandates in the law would be more than offset by “other spending increases and revenue reductions that repeal of the ACA would entail,” said the CBO.
In total, the CBO estimated that savings from 2014 to 2022 resulting from the repeal of Obamacare insurance coverage mandates would be $1.2 trillion. But the cost of repealing other provisions of the law would total about $1.3 trillion.
This post originally ran on our sister website, HRBenefitsAlert.com.
