Ryan defends CBO director amid backlash on Senate healthcare bill score

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) defended the head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Tuesday, just a day after the White House lashed out at the CBO’s estimate that the Senate GOP healthcare bill would leave 22 million more people uninsured during the next decade.

Ryan expressed confidence in the integrity and impartiality of CBO Director Keith Hall, noting that then-Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) — President Trump’s current Health and Human Services secretary — was among the GOP leaders who hired Hall in 2015.

“Yeah, he’s actually a Republican appointee. If I’m not mistaken, Tom Price appointed him,” Ryan, himself a former Budget Committee chairman, told reporters.

“I have always had my own complaints about methodologies and score-keeping. We all have our preferences and our opinions on these things,” Ryan said, adding that “there is more to the story than what [the CBO] number implies.”

But Ryan added: “It’s important that we have a scorekeeper. … It is important that we have a referee.”

The CBO, Congress’s nonpartisan budget scorekeeper, analyzes the impact of legislation. While the CBO analysis released Monday said tens of millions would lose health insurance under the Senate bill, the report also said it would also cut the deficit by $321 billion over 10 years.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is pushing for a vote this week on the ObamaCare repeal-and-replace bill, but he is facing a handful of new GOP defections since the CBO score was unveiled.

In a private meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday morning, Price continued to make the case for the repeal-and-replace legislation, citing an HHS study that showed premiums are rising under ObamaCare.

Ryan implored his members to give senators some space to work out their differences and to “be constructive,” according to lawmakers in the meeting.

Speaking to reporters later, Ryan declined to say whether the House would go to conference with the Senate or simply take up the Senate bill if the upper chamber manages to pass it this week.

However, the Speaker praised his Senate counterpart, who has a reputation on Capitol Hill as a brilliant legislative tactician.

“I would not bet against Mitch McConnell,” Ryan quipped.

One House Republican summed up the chances the Senate bill will pass this way: “High hopes. Low expectations.”