The White House panned the CBO estimates in a statement released on Monday evening.
"The CBO has consistently proven it cannot accurately predict how healthcare legislation will impact insurance coverage," the White House stated. "In 2013, the CBO estimated that 24 million people would have coverage under Obamacare by 2016. It was off by an astounding 13 million people – more than half – as less than 11 million were actually covered."
"To date, we have seen average individual market premiums more than double and insurers across the country opting out of healthcare exchanges," the White House continued, urging action to be taken to reform health care.
Bishop Dewane, meanwhile, promised to pray for the Senate "to keep the good aspects of current health care proposals, to add missing elements where needed, and to not place our sisters and brothers who struggle every day into so great a peril on so basic a right."
Last week, the bishop had outlined his serious concerns with the draft legislation. The bill, he said, in some ways made the problems with the House health care bill on health coverage for low-income persons worse.
"It is precisely the detrimental impact on the poor and vulnerable that makes the Senate draft unacceptable as written," he said on Thursday. The cuts to Medicaid funding in particular would "wreak havoc on low-income families and struggling communities, and must not be supported," he insisted.
Bishop Dewane also noted the lack of language protecting "conscience rights" of those in the health care industry from mandates that they perform morally objectionable procedures like abortions or gender-transition surgeries.
He did praise the language protecting tax credits from being used to pay for abortions, but showed caution in warning that the language could very well be removed by the chamber's parliamentarian because it could be ruled as not pertaining to the budget.
Other parts of the health care bill that the CBO scored included changes to premiums for persons in non-group plans.
The average premiums for these plans would increase in the short-term, the CBO estimated, but by 2020 would drop to 30 percent lower than the premium estimates under the current health care law.
However, some could still see their health care costs rise because their benefits might be cut and their out-of-pocket health costs could be higher, especially those living in states which choose to waive the essential health benefits.
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The marketplaces for non-group health insurance would still be stable in the coming years, the CBO estimated, but in certain areas for "a small fraction of the population," insurers might not participate in non-group coverage.
This would be because fewer people would sign up for health plans due to fewer available subsidies, or even if the insurers participate in marketplaces, the plans themselves might be more expensive.
When asked on Monday if the White House would take CBO scores into account to the extent that they would go "back to the drawing board" on the bill if necessary, press secretary Sean Spicer answered that the White House would continue its current plan on health care reform.
"We feel very confident with where the bill is," he stated. "And he [President Donald Trump] is going to continue to listen to senators who have ideas about how to strengthen it. But it's going to follow the same plan as we have."
Matt Hadro was the political editor at Catholic News Agency through October 2021. He previously worked as CNA senior D.C. correspondent and as a press secretary for U.S. Congressman Chris Smith.