Select conservatives on Capitol Hill and beyond are oddly taking sides with Democratic congressional leaders in asking for a budget analysis of the House GOP's Obamacare replacement.
The American Health Care Act was unveiled Monday. The bill made it through the House Ways and Means Committee early Thursday morning, and later Thursday the House Energy and Commerce Committee gave it the all-clear.
As the Washington Examiner noted, Republicans have not waited for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to score the bill before pushing it through the legislative process.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., along with some Republicans, want the CBO to give the bill a score before it is put up for a vote on the House floor.
Pelosi read a letter from 2009 written by then Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., now the speaker of the House. In his letter, Ryan asked Democrats to wait for the CBO to score the Affordable Care Act before putting it up for a vote. Democrats obliged, and the healthcare law was passed.
This week's American Health Care Act is designed to replace the current Obamacare law.
The Examiner wrote Republicans are getting around the CBO issue by saying the office is not as non-partisan and credible as people think. On Wednesday, for example, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said, "If you're looking to the CBO for accuracy, you're looking in the wrong place. They were way, way off last time in every aspect of how they scored and projected Obamacare."
Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., said this week he would like to know how much the GOP's healthcare bill will cost before getting behind it.