Congress is voting Thursday on a bill to replace Obamacare. The CBO still hasnt scored it.
[The House of Representatives will vote on the American Health Care Act, the bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, on Thursday in the early afternoon. House Republicans are hurtling toward a vote on a bill that is disliked by most Americans, opposed by nearly every major health care group, and not yet scored by the Congressional Budget Office.
This is an unusual situation, and a puzzling one. Republicans will vote tomorrow for a health care bill without knowing how many people it covers or how much it would cost. They risk setting themselves up for embarrassment when the numbers actually do come out and don't look good.
As leadership scrambles to whip the votes for the American Health Care Act, it's worth stepping back to ask: What the heck is the rush?
The best explanation I've found comes from my colleague Andrew Prokop. When Republicans started this year, they had a strategy to move two big policy packages, one on health care and another on tax reform. There would only be two chances to use the budget reconciliation process that allows a bill to pass with only 51 Senate votes, so each would get one shot.
Health reform would go first, they thought, because it would be simpler. It was a legislative strategy built when the Republican health care plan looked markedly different:
But then GOP leaders encountered a problem. Their members, in both the House and the Senate, turned out to really hate the “repeal and delay” strategy, because it meant getting rid of Obamacare and its benefits without the “replacement” the party had long promised they’d offer being ready.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/3/15536680/voxcare-ahca-vote-cbo-score-absurd