| Sign up for The Hill's Newsletters: Policy at The Hill: | Week ahead: New budget numbers for ObamaCare By Sarah Ferris and Peter Sullivan The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Monday will unveil new projections on ObamaCare's costs over the next 10 years. The new figures will be important for the administration, which is hard-pressed to show that the controversial law is helping to drive down federal spending. The CBO’s most recent projections, released in January, found that ObamaCare would likely cost 7 percent less than expected through 2025. The administration quickly seized on the news to solicit more support for the law’s cost-saving programs. But if the CBO revises its cost estimate upward, the administration’s gain could be wiped away. Republicans will also be paying close attention to the growth of entitlement programs. Cost estimates for Medicaid, the low-income insurance program ObamaCare vastly expanded, have continued to swell during the rollout of the law, giving the GOP more ammunition in its fight. Also on Monday, seniors will be running a food truck outside of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) headquarters. Health insurer trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans says “spirited seniors will share cookies, coffee and personal stories about why they love Medicare Advantage and the need for policymakers to protect their benefits from any further cuts.” The Obama administration announced last month that it is seeking a 1 percent cut in the program, which runs on federal funds but is managed by private providers. The Senate Health Committee is holding a hearing on medical innovation on Tuesday. It will feature testimony from National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell will give remarks Wednesday at a conference dedicated to sustainable healthcare delivery systems, one of the top goals of her tenure so far. Burwell has pledged to reform healthcare payments by prioritizing quality over quantity, earning her praise throughout the industry but raising questions about how she will achieve the goal. Supreme Court arguments for the case King v. Burwell are over, but the GOP will keep planning for a possible repeal of ObamaCare's challenged subsidies. The Senate’s working group on the case will continue to meet next week, as it has since January, to craft the party’s response for if the Supreme Court decides to strike down ObamaCare’s insurance subsidies. Conservative justices made it clear during arguments this week that they would be counting on Congress to limit the fallout in the event of a plaintiff victory, an outcome that would erase billions of dollars worth of subsidies. While top Republicans in the House and Senate said this week that they are nearing a consensus on their efforts to create a back-up plan for the subsidies, almost no details have been shared about the half-dozen plans unveiled in the last two weeks. |
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