Mum’s the word
Another wrinkle in this story of The Glorious Repeal of the Affordable Care Act: the Republicans have told the Congressional Budget Office not to analyze the cost of proposals for repeal. Keep that shit a secret! Make sure the public can’t find out what a massive fuckup this will be!
Under the House rules, which passed on a party-line vote without any Democrats in favor, the budget office is prohibited from analyzing “any bill or joint resolution” that repeals or modifies Obamacare.
This prohibition probably reflects that Republicans have come to grips with the fact that several provisions within the massive health care law have reduced the federal deficit, thanks to tax increases or payment restrictions on Medicare providers.
According to an analysis produced by the budget office in June, repealing Obamacare would increase the federal budget deficit by about $137 billion over the next 10 years. Using another method of calculation, the repeal would add $353 billion.
No price is too high to stick it to those abominable people who insist on making low wages when they could just build towers in Manhattan and be rich enough to buy themselves entire hospitals.
Just rebrand lower deficits “Obama Savings,” and everyone will think they’re bad.
Im only half-joking. Why are Republicans concerned about hiding the truth about possible increases in the deficit? They are extremely skilled at spin, after all. If you can get tens of millions of people to vote to have their own insurance canceled, then I’m sure you can get people excited about bigger budget deficits.
Very much like the NRA approach to gun safety statistics: block that shit! Don’t look at it! The less information the voters have the more likely they are to vote conservative, and that’s all they care about.