The White House on Tuesday morning blasted a Politico report from the night before saying a White House estimate found more people to be at risk of losing their health insurance under Republicans’ planned healthcare overhaul than those in estimates released by the Congressional Budget Office.
Politico said it viewed a document on Monday outlining an internal White House examination of the potential impacts of the American Health Care Act and found that the number of Americans who would lose health-insurance coverage within 10 years could actually be closer to 26 million, not the 24 million projected by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Monday night.
The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, blasted the Politico report in a tweet Tuesday morning, however, calling it “totally misleading.”
“This story is totally misleading The projection was an estimate of what CBO would conclude,” Spicer tweeted. “It was not a WH analysis.”
According to Politico, the White House’s specific estimates broke down to 17 million people losing Medicaid coverage, 6 million people losing coverage in the individual market, and 3 million losing coverage in employer-based plans.
Politico reported that the White House estimated that about 54 million Americans would be uninsured by 2026. That number would be nearly double the projections under the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare law better known as Obamacare.
Business Insider's Bob Bryan broke down the specifics of the CBO's report estimating the American Health Care Act's impacts. The nonpartisan agency's assessment released Monday night estimated that as many as 24 million more people would be uninsured under the GOP's replacement for Obamacare and that the federal budget deficit would shrink by more than $300 billion over the next decade.
This article has been updated to include comments made Tuesday by Sean Spicer.
Peter Jacobs contributed reporting to this story.