CBO’s Objectivity and the Agency’s Estimates of the Effects of the American Health Care Act
Report
In a letter to Rep. Tom MacArthur, CBO offers information about the steps the agency takes to ensure its work is objective, impartial, and nonpartisan and answers questions about its analysis of the effects of the American Health Care Act.
On July 12, CBO Director Keith Hall met with Representative Tom MacArthur to discuss questions the Congressman had raised regarding CBO’s processes for ensuring the integrity of its work and about the agency’s analysis of the effects of the American Health Care Act (AHCA). This letter provides additional details about the matters discussed, including:
The steps CBO takes to ensure that its work is objective, impartial, and nonpartisan;
The benchmark to which the AHCA was compared and how the percentage of people insured today relates to CBO’s estimates of the number under the AHCA and under that benchmark over the next decade; and
Why CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation did not provide an estimate of the average effect on premiums for people living in states that would obtain waivers from requirements for both essential health benefits and community rating under the AHCA.
