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congressional budget office
House Republican Healthcare Plan Would Leave 100,000 More Uninsured Per Year: CBO
"It’s a raw deal for working people: higher costs and less coverage, or no coverage at all," said Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle.
Dec 17, 2025
The Republican bill that's set for a vote in the US House on Wednesday would leave around 100,000 more Americans uninsured per year over the next decade, according to a new analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The analysis published late Tuesday examines each major section of the legislation, which experts have characterized as an assortment of GOP healthcare ideas that—in combination—would do little to achieve its stated goal of "lower healthcare premiums for all."
The CBO estimates that the Republican bill, which stands no chance of passing the Senate even if it clears the House on Wednesday, would lower gross benchmark premiums by 11% on average between 2027 and 2035.
But the legislation does not extend enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that expire at the end of the year, meaning premiums overall are poised to more than double on average in the coming year. Many Americans are expected to forgo insurance coverage entirely in the face of unaffordable premium increases.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said Tuesday that the CBO analysis "makes clear that the bill Republican leadership wants to pass tomorrow would make a bad situation even worse," compounding the widespread damage caused by the Medicaid cuts the party approved over the summer.
"It’s a raw deal for working people: higher costs and less coverage, or no coverage at all," said Boyle. "If Republicans were serious about fixing the healthcare crisis they created, they’d work with Democrats to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits and prevent costs from rising for tens of millions of Americans.”
"While Congress heads home for the holidays, it’s leaving millions of families behind to wonder how they will make ends meet in the new year."
The CBO analysis came hours after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) shot down a bipartisan push for a vote to extend the expiring ACA tax credits, which more than 20 million Americans relied on to afford health coverage.
But on Wednesday, four swing-district House Republicans—Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob Bresnahan, and Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler of New York—revolted against the GOP leadership and signed onto a Democratic discharge petition aimed at forcing a floor vote on a proposed three-year extension of the enhanced ACA subsidies.
"The only policy that is worse than a clean three-year extension without any reforms, is a policy of complete expiration without any bridge," Fitzpatrick said in a statement. "Unfortunately, it is House leadership themselves that have forced this outcome."
It's unclear when the House will vote on the extension, as lawmakers are leaving town for a two-week holiday recess on Friday. The House is set to return to session on January 6, 2026—after the official expiration of the ACA subsidies.
“While Congress heads home for the holidays, it’s leaving millions of families behind to wonder how they will make ends meet in the new year,” Ailen Arreaza, executive director of the advocacy group ParentsTogether, said in a statement Wednesday. “By refusing to fix this healthcare crisis, Republicans are choosing political games over families’ health and financial security."
"These subsidies have been a lifeline for millions, and letting them expire will force millions to make impossible choices or even go without coverage altogether," said Arreaza. "Make no mistake: Families around the country will pay the price for Congress’ inaction."
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Trump-GOP Giveaway to Big Pharma Will Hit Taxpayers With $9 Billion in Higher Drug Costs
"Donald Trump and Republicans are selling out America's seniors," said one advocate.
Oct 21, 2025
A major pharmaceutical industry handout that Republicans—with the support of one Senate Democrat—included in President Donald Trump's signature legislative package is expected to cost US taxpayers nearly twice as much as originally expected, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in an updated analysis released Monday.
The CBO initially projected that the provision, known as the ORPHAN Cures Act, would cost around $5 billion over the next decade. But the office said Monday that its earlier assessment did not take into account several major, high-priced drugs that will be exempted from Medicare price negotiations as a result of the Trump-GOP law.
The budget office said it now expects the provision of Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act to cost $8.8 billion over the next 10 years.
Among the drugs included in the new CBO analysis is Keytruda, a cancer medication sold by Merck that carries a list price of $24,062 every six weeks. The Trump GOP-budget law delays Keytruda's eligibility for Medicare price negotiations by at least a year, postponing significant potential savings for taxpayers and patients.
Merith Basey, executive director of Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, said in response to the updated CBO analysis that "the ORPHAN Cures Act is a wildly expensive handout to Big Pharma that will harm patients, drain taxpayer dollars, and weaken the government's ability to rein in high drug prices."
Basey noted that the "insatiable" pharmaceutical industry is not satisfied with the enactment of the ORPHAN Cures Act, which restricts Medicare price negotiations for drugs that treat more than one rare disease. Big Pharma, Basey said, is "spending record sums this year to advance additional carveouts like the EPIC Act, which would exempt even more blockbuster drugs from negotiation."
"Any support for these bills goes against the will of the 90% of Americans who want Congress to go further to lower drug prices—not facilitate another handout to Big Pharma," said Basey.
"This isn't about helping lower costs—it's about doing the bidding of big drug companies, and Trump and the GOP are all too happy to oblige."
The deep-pocketed pharmaceutical industry has waged war on the popular Medicare price negotiation program since its inception during the Biden administration.
While pharmaceutical giants' efforts to gut the program have been stymied in court, the industry-friendly Trump administration and Republican lawmakers have done pharma's bidding through legislation and executive action. Earlier this year, as Common Dreams reported, Trump signed an executive order aimed at delaying price negotiations for a broad category of medications despite the president's repeated promises to bring down costs.
"Trump and Republicans are selling out America's seniors," said Brad Woodhouse, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Care. "Instead of letting Medicare negotiate lower prices for more drugs, they carved out a loophole to protect the industry's most profitable drugs."
"Not only does the GOP tax bill throw over 15 million Americans off their healthcare and hike costs for millions more, but it also forces older Americans to pay more for life-saving medicines while CEOs and billionaires line their pockets with more money than they know what to do with," Woodhouse continued. "This isn't about helping lower costs—it's about doing the bidding of big drug companies, and Trump and the GOP are all too happy to oblige."
Steve Knievel, access to medicines advocate at Public Citizen, said Monday that "instead of transferring $10 billion from taxpayers and cancer patients to drug corporations that are already extremely profitable, President Trump and members of Congress must work to strengthen and expand Medicare drug price negotiations."
"Instead of gutting the law through bills like the ORPHAN Cures Act, EPIC Act, and MINI Act so Big Pharma can block negotiations on blockbuster treatments," Knievel added, "Congress should pass legislation to empower Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices on all costly medicines and allow all patients to access lower, negotiated prices, even if they don't have Medicare."
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'Trump Is Making Your Life More Expensive': Tariff Chaos Engulfs US Economy
“Poor and working people are paying the price" of the president's tariff policies, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
Sep 16, 2025
US consumers are increasingly feeling the impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs, and the head of the Congressional Budget Office said on Monday that they are fueling inflation.
During an appearance on CNBC, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) director Phillip Swagel said that the president's tariffs have pushed up inflation more than the agency initially anticipated, although he emphasized that their impact on inflation so far was "not by a lot, but by enough to show" in the numbers.
Swagel also said that the higher-than-expected inflation was a surprise because there are signs that the US economy has slowed significantly since January.
CNN on Tuesday published an analysis using numbers from the Yale Budget Lab estimating that Trump's tariffs will cost US households an average of $2,300 extra per year, which is nearly three times as much as the $800 US households are projected to receive on average from new tax provisions contained in the Republicans' "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that passed earlier this year.
The combined distributional impacts of the Trump tariffs and the GOP tax law are also highly regressive. According to CNN's analysis, a household with annual earnings of $38,840 would be $2,560 worse off thanks to the tariffs and the tax law, while households earning $517,700 would be $8,180 better off.
The Washington Post on Tuesday reported that Trump's tariffs aren't just hurting Americans in the US, but those living abroad as well.
As explained by the Post, Americans living abroad have been unable to send mail to the US without paying hefty fines thanks to the chaos being caused by Trump's tariffs. The reason for this, writes the paper, is that Trump earlier this year canceled a policy known as the de minimis exemption, effective August 29, that "allowed the tariff-free flow of goods under $800 into the United States."
This has led not just to increased shipping costs for Americans living abroad, but has also resulted in foreign nations slowing or even outright halting shipments to the US because they are unsure about how to calculate the costs.
"Confusion about the rules have led to issues since the exemption was lifted on August 29," the Post wrote. "At first, national postal services in more than 30 countries temporarily suspended sending some or most US-bound packages. Since then, restrictions have eased, and the Universal Postal Union deployed a tool this week to help operators calculate duties and resume services."
Reacting to fresh revelations about the impact of the tariffs, many progressive Democrats hammered Trump for increasing the cost of living for working-class families.
"Under Donald Trump’s economy: coffee is up 26%, beef is up 14%, oranges are up 17%, bananas are up 6%, chicken is up 6%, chocolate chip cookies are up 5%, potato chips are up 4%, milk is up 4%," wrote Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). "But average worker pay is only up 2%. Trumpflation is eating up your paycheck."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) added that “from school supplies to gas to groceries, Trump is making your life more expensive."
"Poor and working people are paying the price of his reckless policies," said the congresswoman.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, took to the Senate floor on Monday to single out a different Trump policy that he said was also raising prices for US consumers—namely, his attacks on green energy projects.
"This administration is shamelessly working to block one of our best defenses against rising energy bills: renewable energy," Padilla said. "And I say so because renewable energy is absolutely affordable, renewable energy is abundant, and whether you want to admit it or not, renewable energy sources are our future."
The senator also pointed to his home state of California as an example of what can happen when the government encourages the development of green energy projects.
"[California is] harnessing the power of solar and wind and hydroelectric power and nuclear, geothermal, even hydrogen power to our state," he said. "And it’s exactly because of those investments that even in a year like 2024, just last year, when we experienced record heatwaves that we also saw record renewable energy generation, and we kept the lights on."
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