Opening healthcare debate focuses on CBO scoring

The opening debate on whether Congress should repeal last year's healthcare law is focusing not on the physical health of Americans, but the fiscal health of the federal government.

Debate on repeal legislation, H.R. 2, started at 3 p.m. between House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and ranking committee member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Ryan started by saying the law is a "fiscal house of cards" that will "accelerate this country toward bankruptcy" if left in place. Ryan reiterated Republican complaints from last year that the bill inappropriately double-counts tax revenue raised by the law by saying it can both reduce the deficit and pay for healthcare reforms, and said Republicans believe the law does not save money, but would cost $1.4 trillion in the first 10 years.

"This bill blows a hole through the deficit," Ryan said.

Republicans and Democrats have a fundamental disagreement on how the Congressional Budget Office scored the fiscal effects of the bill, and Republicans have all but said they are discounting CBO's analysis, which says repealing the law would increase the deficit by $230 billion. Van Hollen said Tuesday that ignoring the CBO estimate is an "unprecedented step" that is a "recipe for budget anarchy and fiscal chaos."

This disagreement is likely to have little effect on passage of H.R. 2, since the Democratically controlled Senate will not take up the bill even after it passes the House. However, the budget battle will likely persist as House Republicans seek to make changes to the healthcare law later in the year, and is expected to complicate attempts to find agreement between the two parties on possible changes to existing law.

Van Hollen argued that the Senate's decision to ignore H.R. 2 means the seven-hour debate on the bill is largely a waste of time, and called on Republicans to focus on ways to create jobs. To that, Ryan retorted that the repeal bill is a jobs bill. "A half a trillion dollars in tax increases, that creates jobs?" Ryan asked of the healthcare law.

The chairmen and ranking members from House committees on Education and the Workforce, Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, Judiciary and Small Business will lead other portions of the debate Tuesday and Wednesday, culminating in a Wednesday vote on H.R. 2.