The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its much-anticipated score of the American Health Care Act (AHCA). Over the next ten years, the CBO estimates that federal revenues will decline by $882.8 billion as a result of the repeal, delay, or zeroing out of most of ObamaCare's taxes, and federal spending will be reduced by $1.219 trillion. Overall, the deficit would be reduced by $336.5 billion from FY 2017 through FY 2026 under the proposed legislation.

The House and Senate are in session this week

After a long wait and leaked discussion drafts, the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee have finally released their recommendations to repeal and replace ObamaCare. These committees were originally due to have their recommendations submitted to the House Budget Committee on January 27, as required by S.Con.Res. 3.

The House and Senate are in session this week

Congressional Republicans have had nearly seven years to coalesce behind a patient-centered alternative to ObamaCare, but the discussion draft of repeal and replace legislation recently obtained by Politico shows that the GOP alternative to 2010 law is ObamaCare-lite.

House Republican leaders and HHS Secretary Tom Price have been briefing the House Republican Conference on the alternatives with which they plan to replace ObamaCare. While the transition period between ObamaCare and the Republican alternative, which still has not been introduced in legislative text, is unspecified, the policy brief that Republican leaders have given to the conference has been leaked to the press.

On behalf of our activists and the millions of Americans who have been negatively affected as a result of ObamaCare, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to support the ObamaCare Replacement Act, H.R. 1072, introduced by Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.). Last week, FreedomWorks released a letter of support for the Senate version of the ObamaCare Replacement Act, S. 222, introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), because the bill promotes key aspects of what the health insurance market should look like after ObamaCare is fully repealed.

With the passage of S.Con.Res. 3, the FY 2017 budget resolution, Congress has started the process of repealing ObamaCare through reconciliation. Although the budget resolution spends far too much and increases publicly held debt by $9 trillion, its purpose is to direct relevant committees to make recommendations to repeal ObamaCare. It will not be sent to the president for approval.

Since the passage of ObamaCare in 2010, critics of the law have endured the criticism that we’re all about opposition, without providing constructive alternatives for health care reform. The truth is closer to the polar opposite – if anything, we suffer from a surplus, rather than a deficit, of comprehensive plans to repeal and replace ObamaCare.