Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” former Obama National Economic Council director Larry Summers discussed his op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post and said the Republican Senate tax bill, which included a repeal of the ObamaCare individual mandate, will cause thousands to die.
Summers said, “Look I think this bill is very dangerous. There is pretty clear evidence looking across different states and looking at when health insurance has been phased in and out, when people lose health insurance, they’re less likely to get preventive care, they’re more likely to defer health care they need, and ultimately they’re more likely to die.”
He continued, “My piece explains why an estimate that thousands will die as a consequence of this bill is actually a very conservative estimate.”
He added, “I think it would be great to start doing things in a bipartisan way, but that’s going to require not passing major pieces of legislation hours after the relevant staffs have had a chance to evaluate them. That’s going to require holding hearings on pieces of major legislation, that’s going to require doing all sorts of things that it doesn’t look like the administration and the current congressional leadership wants to do.”
(h/t The Hill)
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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