Mick Mulvaney: Everyone will have health care coverage under GOP bill
WASHINGTON -- White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has confidence in the Trump administration's ability to pass the latest version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) through the Senate, and says the bill will provide what he calls "sustainable" coverage for all Americans.
Mulvaney, appearing on "Face the Nation" Sunday, said that "everybody will have coverage that's better than what they had under Obamacare."
"So much of the dialogue today is sort of compared to this ideal of what people thought Obamacare was going to be and what they want it so desperately to be. The real thing to measure it against is against what Obamacare really is," Mulvaney added.
The director added that the focus now is on getting the bill passed through the Senate, and said negotiations are ongoing as to what final form the bill will take before arriving to President Trump's desk.
"The bill that passed out of the House is most likely not going to be the bill that is put in front of the president," he said. "The Senate will have their chance to change the bill, improve the bill. The negotiations will continue again. So I think it's important we reserve judgment on what the president will or won't sign until we know what's in front of him."
Mulvaney quipped that the process now is similar to that of the famous Schoolhouse Rock television special on teaching children how a bill becomes a law.
"We're going to go through that process, is it ugly? Maybe. Is it slow? Yes. But it's the right way to handle it," said Mulvaney.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virgnia, however, told Dickerson on "Face the Nation" that the bill still needs to be fixed.
"The Affordable Care Act, there's not a Democrat who doesn't realize we need to work on the private market," Manchin said. "But you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And then you're throwing insult to injury by giving a $575 billion tax cut to the wealthiest Americans while you're cutting $880 billion of service to the poorest Americans. If you want more synergies there, you know, I said this before, John. We have given 20 million people, 20 million people, health care they never had, never bought, don't know the value. We never gave them one word of instructions how to use it, how to use it more effectively, how to use it more efficiently, how to keep themselves healthier."
Manchin added, "I just want to work, and sit down, and try to get something done. But no one's asked us."
When asked about the lack of the Congressional Budget Office's score of the latest revision of the bill, Mulvaney said the CBO had previously "missed the mark" on how many people would lose coverage.
"One of the things you see is that the C.B.O. assumes that once the mandate is gone, people will voluntarily drop off of expanded Medicaid. Think about that for a second. The C.B.O. is assuming in getting to that 24 million people that you get Medicaid for free but once the mandate that you take it is gone you'll voluntarily give up that free benefit. It's just absurd. We've talked it I think when that first analysis came out. The C.B.O., we thought, really missed the mark. They missed the mark a couple years ago on how many people would sign up. And we think they've missed the mark again on how many people will lose coverage," said Mulvaney.
Mulvaney urged Republicans currently facing their constituents at home during recess to campaign for support of the bill, saying it should be something "Republicans run to, not away from."