Paul Ryan Responds to CBO Report

After the Congressional Budget Office issued its dire assessment of the Republicans' healthcare proposal, Speaker Paul Ryan released this statement in response:

This report confirms that the American Health Care Act will lower premiums and improve access to quality, affordable care. CBO also finds that this legislation will provide massive tax relief, dramatically reduce the deficit, and make the most fundamental entitlement reform in more than a generation. These are things we are achieving in just the first of a three-pronged approach. It's important to note that this report does not take into consideration additional steps Congress and the Trump administration are taking that will further lower costs and increase choices.

I recognize and appreciate concerns about making sure people have access to coverage. Under Obamacare, we have seen how government-mandated coverage does not equal access to care, and now the law is collapsing. Our plan is not about forcing people to buy expensive, one-size-fits-all coverage. It is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford. When people have more choices, costs go down. That's what this report shows. And, as we have long said, there will be a stable transition so that no one has the rug pulled out from under them.

This week, a third House committee will debate the American Health Care Act as part of an open, transparent process. We have set out a clear goal—to give every American access to quality, affordable care—and a clear plan to achieve it. Now we must keep our promise and deliver.

This is just undiluted horseshit.

Its every syllable is contemptible, but I am particularly disdainful of the aggressive insufficiency of this rubbish: "I recognize and appreciate concerns about making sure people have access to coverage."

Like it's an aside, rather than the central issue.

He's so intolerably glib about this. It's a life and death issue, and he sounds like he's talking about making sure there's enough ambrosia salad for the potluck.