Ryan says it's 'a bogus attack from the left' to claim health care bill was rushed
“This is kind of a bogus attack from the left,” Ryan said.
— -- House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, pushed back against criticism that Republican representatives rushed through their Obamacare replacement bill without adequate review or analysis of the legislation's impact.
“This is kind of a bogus attack from the left,” Ryan said of such criticism in an exclusive interview Sunday with ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on "This Week."
Democrats and some Republicans slammed the House GOP leadership’s decision to hold a vote on the American Health Care Act on Thursday shortly after a final draft of the bill was posted online and before the legislation was reviewed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Critics have also pointed to Ryan’s admonishment of Democrats in 2009 during their work on the Affordable Care Act.
“I don’t think we should pass bills that we haven’t read, that we don’t know what they cost,” Ryan said at the time on MSNBC. “If you rush this thing through before anybody even knows what it is, that’s not good democracy.”
Ryan told Stephanopoulos on Sunday that the House bill, which passed narrowly and now heads to the Senate, “has been online for two months” and has been analyzed twice by the CBO.
The CBO analysis of the initial bill found that 24 million more Americans would be uninsured in 10 years under the GOP bill than if Obamacar stayed in place.
When Stephanopoulos noted that significant amendments have been made to the bill since then, Ryan replied that the final amendment "was three pages long. It takes you 30 seconds to read."
The entire bill is under 200 pages, he added. "It doesn't take long to go through this bill."
Several Republican House members, including Rep. Chris Collins of New York, admitted publicly to not reading the entire GOP health care bill before voting on it.
The House speaker also said the two recent amendments to the bill were “narrow” and unlikely to change its impact.One of the amendments would let states apply for waivers to allow insurance companies to hike premiums for people with pre-existing conditions.
But Ryan told Stephanopoulos the House bill has "multiple layers of protection" so that people with pre-existing health conditions can "get affordable coverage."
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