Lamar Alexander
Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement on the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) report on the draft Senate health care bill:
"The Congressional Budget Office report is helpful information for every senator to consider as we review the draft Senate bill and look at how it will affect our states.
"I'm encouraged that CBO says premiums would begin to fall under this bill starting in 2020, especially in states that take advantage of the new flexibility available under the bill.
"It's important to remember that the alternative to this bill is current law that leaves 162,000 Tennesseans who make less than $12,000 a year without aid to buy insurance, and as many as 350,000 Tennesseans in the individual market facing the real possibility of having zero insurance options next year."
Senator Alexander said the bill:
- Offers health care coverage to 162,000 Tennesseans who make less than $12,000 a year, and under the current law, receive zero help buying insurance.
- Means the 350,000 Tennesseans who buy their insurance in the individual market – these are Tennesseans who don’t get their insurance on the job or who don’t get it from the government – are more likely to be able to buy insurance next year instead of being in the collapsing Obamacare exchanges where there may be only one option – or even zero options – to buy insurance.
- Repeals the health insurance tax, which drives up the cost of premiums.
- Gives the state more flexibility and continues federal cost-sharing, which our state insurance commissioner said will help bring down the cost of premiums.
- Slows down sky-rocketing premiums, which in Tennessee have gone up 176 percent over four years.
- Repeals the medical device tax on one of our state’s largest exports.
- Repeals the employer mandate penalty, which should mean that employers should be able to offer employees more choices of insurance at a lower-cost—and about 60 percent of us get our insurance on the job.
- Ends the tax on individuals who choose not to buy insurance.
- Provides more money for hospitals that serve low-income Tennesseans who don’t have insurance.
- Provides new funding for opioid abuse, and opioid abuse is a rampant epidemic in our state.
- Provides new Medicaid funding for mental health to double the number of days of in-patient treatment.
Senator David Perdue (R-GA) said, “When the CBO scored Obamacare in 2010, it overshot its projection of how many people would gain insurance by more than 12 million people. It’s clear the CBO cannot predict the purchasing patterns for millions of Americans.
"Just like the House CBO score earlier this year, this bureaucratic analysis will do nothing to prevent Obamacare from failing. In Georgia, 96 out of 159 counties have only one insurer within the Obamacare exchanges, leaving hundreds of thousands of Georgians with no competition to choose from for their health insurance. Nationwide, 40 percent of counties will only have one insurer to choose from in the exchange next year. The bottom line is, Obamacare isn’t working and we have to act to put our health care system back on a solid foundation.”