White House press secretary Sean Spicer, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney arrive to discuss the CBO reporter outside the West Wing of the White House on March 13. | AP Photo White House calls CBO health care report bogus Trump's administration says the report showing 24 million fewer insured under GOP bill is 'just not believable.'

Unbelievable, wrong and “virtually impossible.”

That was how President Donald Trump’s administration responded Monday to the Congressional Budget Office’s politically damaging score of House Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.


The nonpartisan CBO projected that the bill, the American Health Care Act, would insure 24 million fewer Americans than Obamacare by 2026 but reduce the federal deficit by $337 billion in the same span.

“We disagree strenuously with the report that was put out,” Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price told reporters after leaving a Cabinet meeting with Trump at the White House. “It's just not believable is what we would suggest.”

Bracing for what was expected to be a dismal projection, the White House had begun setting expectations earlier Monday by blasting the alternative: Obamacare.

Warning Republicans that they’re “putting themselves in a very bad position” by repealing and replacing Obamacare, Trump himself said letting it “implode” is still an option — seemingly issuing a threat to Republicans who have so far been unwilling to support the bill.

Even as he’s endorsed House leadership’s Obamacare replacement plan, Trump has argued that Republicans should let the health care law collapse so Americans can see Obamacare for what it really is: in his eyes, at least, a failure.

“Obamacare all of a sudden the last couple of weeks is getting a false rep that maybe it’s OK. It’s not OK,” Trump said Monday afternoon during the meeting with Cabinet officials. “It’s a disaster, and people understand that. It’s failed, and it’s imploding. And if we let it go for another year, it’ll totally implode. In fact, I’ve told the Republicans, ‘Why don’t you just let it go for another year?’ That way everybody will really understand how bad it is.”

Trump’s bleak outlook for Obamacare appears to be a subtle nudge to resolute Republicans who have stated their opposition to the Republican replacement plan. Leaders have presented the replacement as a binary choice between the bill making its way through the House and the status quo of Obamacare, which Republicans have promised to repeal and replace for years.

Price, who helped handpick the current CBO director two years ago, faulted the nonpartisan office for reviewing only part of the replacement plan — Republicans have painted their health care overhaul as a three-part process that begins with the bill currently advancing through the House. However, its job is to analyze the legislation that was introduced, and not include rhetoric from the White House and GOP leaders about additional phases that may or may not happen.

“We believe that the plan that we’re putting in place is gonna insure more individuals than currently are insured. So we think that CBO simply has it wrong,” said Price, who argued that Americans under Obamacare “have health coverage but no health care.”

He added it’s “virtually impossible” for the CBO to come up with the number of Americans it estimated would lose coverage and that he believes the GOP plan will cover more people at lower costs with more coverage options.

But the bill appeared to be stumbling shortly after it was introduced last week, as it was greeted with opposition from a mix of fellow Republicans and powerful outside conservative groups. And despite the progress it’s made in the House, where it’s advanced its way through markups and out of key committees, Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rand Paul of Kentucky have cautioned that it will die in the Senate unless it’s vastly improved before the House votes, with Cotton warning that a yea vote could cost Republicans their House majority.

And that was before CBO projected 14 million fewer people would be insured by 2018 alone.

Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to the president, told “Good Morning America” she isn’t concerned about political calculations or the next election, although Trump himself reportedly warned Republicans last week that there would be a bloodbath in 2018 if they failed to repeal and replace Obamacare.

“I’m not looking at a political calculation whatsoever now. I’m not thinking about the next election,” she said. “I’m thinking about the millions of Americans who don’t have care and don’t have coverage and who want it and need it and who were expecting it through Obamacare.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that “the president’s fully committed to the plan.” But Trump himself was less assuring.

“We’re negotiating with everybody,” the president said. “It’s a big, fat, beautiful negotiation. And hopefully we’ll come up with something that’s gonna be really terrific.”

Trump hammered Obamacare via Twitter and during multiple public appearances Monday, at one point referencing it as “the very, very failed and failing Obamacare law.” He slammed its premium hikes and limited insurers.

“It’s really not having insurance at all,” he added during a listening session with so-called “victims” of Obamacare. “A lot of Obamacare, you don’t really have insurance because the deductibles are so high that you really don’t have insurance, if you think about it.”

“The Republicans, frankly, are putting themselves in a very bad position — I tell this to Tom Price all the time — by repealing Obamacare,” Trump said. “Because people aren’t gonna see the truly devastating effects of Obamacare. They’re not gonna see the devastation. In ’17 and ’18 and ’19, it’ll be gone by then. Whether we do it or not, it’ll be imploded off the map.”

He argued that more people were better off before Obamacare than after it was implemented. People who were so happy pre-Obamacare are miserable now, Trump asserted, and it’s putting Americans “out of business” and “in the poorhouse.”

“I’ve been telling you why don’t we wait, just let it implode and let’s not take the blame,” Trump told Price, who along with Vice President Mike Pence attended the listening session and made brief remarks. “I’ve been telling you that as an option. It’s not an option I like, frankly, but it’s certainly an option.”

Trump accused the media of undermining the GOP's repeal effort by misrepresenting the health care law. In his words: “The press is making Obamacare look so good all of a sudden.”

“They’re showing these reports about this one gets so much and this one gets so much. First of all, it covers very few people, and it’s imploding,” he claimed. “And ’17 will be the worst year. And I said it once; I’ll say it again: because Obama’s gone.”

Contrary to Trump’s comment that Obamacare covers few people, 20 million Americans gained coverage under it — the same number of people Price said would be without coverage if Republicans don’t pass their bill.

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Defending the president’s criticism, Spicer, the press secretary, told reporters that Obamacare is failing on its own. But media coverage, he argued, “makes it seem like it’s all rainbows and puppies.”

Likening favorable coverage of Obamacare, which surveys show has become increasingly popular, to Obama himself, Trump blamed the media for “making it look so wonderful.” He alleged that the media narrative is favoring Obamacare so that if Republicans repeal it, people will remember how “great” and “wonderful” Obamacare used to be.

“It’s a little bit like President Obama. When he left, people liked him,” Trump said. “When he was here, people didn’t like him so much. That’s the way life goes. That’s human nature. The fact is Obamacare is a disaster, and by — and I say this to the Republicans all the time — by repealing it, by getting rid of it, by ending it, everyone’s gonna say, ‘Oh, it used to be so great.’ But it wasn’t great.”

“And I tell Tom Price and I tell Paul Ryan, I tell every one of them, the best thing you can do politically is wait a year because it’s gonna blow itself off the map, but that’s the wrong thing to do for the country,” he continued. “It’s the wrong thing to for our citizens.”

Trump promised that the House bill would “provide you and your fellow citizens with more choices — far more choices — at lower costs,” including the choice of their plan and doctor.

Rates, he said, will “go down, down, down,” while plans will “go up, up, up.”

“You’ll have a lot of choices. You’ll have plans that nobody’s even thinking of today,” he said. “They will have plans that today nobody has even thought about because the market’s going to import that with millions and millions of people wanting health care.”

