Yes, Of Course the Senate Health Care Bill Is As Mean As the House Bill

Test Ticker

Please support Mother Jones with a year-end donation. The truth is, we're a long way from our $600,000 goal, and we have to get as close as we can by Tuesday so we don't have to make hard decisions come January. If you value our reporting, please consider pitching in today.

$600,000

We still need to raise 400,000: Whether you can give $5 or $500, it all matters.

Please support Mother Jones with a year-end donation. We need to raise $600,000, or get as close as we can, by Tuesday so we don't need to make hard decisions come January. Whether you can give $5 or $500, it all makes a difference.

Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.

Here’s some gossip for you:

NEW INFO ON SENATE BILL: Word is bill submitted 2 CBO is actually MORE severe than the House bill.

Same House bill Trump described as mean.

— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) June 19, 2017

Well, who knows? But I will say one thing: the primary purpose of Obamacare repeal is to get rid of Obamacare’s taxes on the rich. However, a reconciliation bill is not allowed to increase the deficit, so if you get rid of the taxes you also have to get rid of at least the same amount of spending.

This means that Senate Republicans have limited options. They can either (a) make the House bill more generous, which means not cutting taxes as much, or (b) keep all the tax cuts, which means cutting spending as much as the House bill.

I think we can all agree that option B is far more likely, can’t we? And cutting spending means cutting health care. They can blather all they want about “improving efficiency” or “letting states innovate” or whatever, but it’s just posturing. Under reconciliation rules, if you want to cut taxes, you have to cut spending. And if you cut spending, you cut health care. End of story.