National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said the best way for people to get health insurance is to get a job while discussing the massive tax cut legislation, which dramatically upends health care, signed into law by President Trump.
During an appearance on CBS News’s “Face The Nation,” Hasset was asked about Americans’ concerns that about 12 million Americans could lose Medicaid coverage, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
However, Hasset said that the CBO made a similar claim when the Trump administration aimed to add work requirement waivers to Obamacare in 2017, stating that the number of insured people increased instead.
“The bottom line is, the best way to get insurance is to get a job,” he said. “And we’ve got a ‘big, beautiful bill’ that’s going to create a lot of job creation and a lot of insurance, and the CBO is just not accounting for that.”
The bill enacts the country’s first-ever requirement for adults under the age of 65 — including low-income parents of children older than 14 — to prove they work, volunteer or attend school at least 80 hours per month.
“The idea that that’s going to cause a massive hemorrhaging in availability of insurance doesn’t make a lot of sense to us,” he said.
Hassett also claimed that 5 million of those who are losing insurance have other insurance, which he says the CBO did not take into account
“They’re people who have two types of insurance,” he added. “And so therefore, if they lose one, they’re still insured.”
Hassett insisted that no one will lose their insurance.
“It’s sound budgetary politics. And I think that nobody’s going to lose their insurance,” he said.
