White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus asserted on Sunday that President Barack Obama's health care reform law is "imploding and exploding" -- even though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has said otherwise.
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace noted in an interview with Priebus that President Donald Trump had blamed Democrats after his replacement for the Affordable Care Act failed to muster enough Republican support to pass the House.
"The president never reached out to Democrats," Wallace said. "You never offered Democrats a compromise. So, how can you blame Democrats for this?"
"Well, look, Obamacare is imploding and it is exploding and every other adjective you can provide," Priebus insisted. "It's going south. And it would be nice to get some Democrats on board."
"But you're right," Trump's chief of staff admitted. "At the end of the day, I believe that it's time for the [Republican Party] to start governing."
Republican leaders like the president and House Speaker Paul Ryan have repeatedly insisted that the Affordable Care Act is in a "death spiral" -- but fact checkers have said that the claim is false.
The CBO recently found that the health insurance "market would probably be stable in most areas under either current law or the legislation" offered by Republicans.
"Growing evidence suggests that the markets are far from collapse," The New York Times pointed out last week. "Because of how the subsidies work, people were generally shielded from this year’s higher prices, and enrollment is steady. Several recent analyses argue that this year’s increase was a market correction, and that a smoother market would follow in the years ahead."
