Didnt keep anyone away. Good afternoon. I hope im glad to see everyone made it safely in. As you may have seen last night, the president met with d. C. Mayor bowser and metro general manager wiedefeld about the preparations for the storm. The president continues to closely monitor the impact of the storm throughout the northeast. The White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs has been in touch with state and local officials in the path of the storm to provide them guidance and support. As the storm continues to track the east coast, heavy to intense snow, sleet, and strong winds could result in significant travel impacts and possible coastal flooding. Again, the president encourages everyone to listen to their state and local leaders and Public Safety officers, and follow their warnings and closure notices. They are working around the clock to ensure the safety of our citizens and their families. In light of the storm, the schedule for today changed a bit. Obviously, german chancellor merkels visit was moved to friday. Well continue to provide you updates on the schedule as we grow closer to friday. Today, the president had lunch with the deputy crown prince and minister of defense of the kingdom of saudi arabia. This afternoon, the president will swear in seema verma as the administrator of centers for medicare and medicaid services. The president looks forward to having the spectacularly qualified and experienced administrator verma finally onboard, especially as we continue to lay the groundwork for historic reform of our healthcare system. Later this afternoon, the president and secretary of health and human services, dr. Tom price, will have a call with the ceo of anthem healthcare, mr. Joseph swedish. He will then have a phone call with speaker ryan and majority leader mccarthy to further discuss the republican plan to repeal and replace obamacare with the American Health care act and a series of muchneeded regulatory reforms to accompany that. The president was glad to see the National Federation of independent businesses announce their support for the American Health care act, and fib has previously identified healthcare along with Small Business taxes as their two biggest priorities, and the president s healthcare agenda will address many of their concerns for Small Businesses. Yesterday, of course, the Congressional Budget Office released their report on the American Health care act. I know that there have been significant concerns about the cbo report, and i want to give a little bit of context to the numbers that have been going around. In 2013, the cbo estimated that 24 Million People would have coverage under obamacare in 2016. They were way off. They were off by 13 Million People over 50 . In fact, only 10. 4 Million People were actually covered. Reports now suggest that that number has dwindled down to 9 million. Cbo coverage estimates are consistently wrong and, more importantly, did not take into consideration the comprehensive nature of the threepronged plan to repeal and replace obamacare with the American Health care act. Were working to bring real relief and better choices to the american family. The two other prongs of our plan contain several additional reforms that will further drive down cost and increase coverage. When you get down to it, the Congressional Budget Office is there to measure the potential impact of programs on the federal budget. Its attempts to estimate coverage have been historically faulty. But in the portion of its analysis that focuses on what the office is really about, the cbo concedes that the American Health care act would actually reduce the deficit by over 330 billion and bring Health Insurance premiums down 10 , even before many of the significant reforms in prongs two and three have taken effect. And as ive mentioned before, some of these include expanding healthcare savings accounts, streamlining the process at fda so that innovative and lowercost medicines can get to patients faster, allowing Health Insurance to be sold across state lines, which increases competition and decreases cost, permitting Small Businesses to band together to negotiate healthcare rates for all of their employees, and reforming the medical malpractice system so that doctors arent spending their time and patients money on unnecessary procedures. Beyond the numbers, lets talk about some reallife examples of the cost of obamacare for some actual americans who the president heard from during his listening session yesterday. Kim sertich, a smallbusiness owner in arizona, had her healthcare cost skyrocket from 389. 79 a month to 809. 15. Carrie couey from colorado, a mother of six whose youngest son is autistic, saw her familys yearly insurance go from 1,700 to 52,000 for a lowerquality plan. And joel brown, a farmer from tennessee, saw his catastrophic coverage cost spike in the wake of obamacare from 119 a month to more than 500 per month. These are the stories that really matter to millions of americans who are suffering under obamacare, and these are the stories that are at the top of the president s mind as he works towards reforming our healthcare system. The president is committed to working together with speaker ryan, majority leader mccarthy, and majority leader mcconnell to create a system thats affordable and accessible to all americans. Let me walk through the rest of the schedule for the week. Tomorrow, the president is headed to michigan to meet with Auto Executives and workers, and will discuss how his plans for rolling back federal red tape will lead to more american jobs and higher wages, specifically in the automobile sector. Its a great opportunity for the president to showcase moves hes already made towards these ambitious buy american, hire america agenda, like encouraging investment and workforce training and developments so that americans are ready for the jobs of the future, and removing the roadblocks that prevent american businesses from staying and expanding here in the United States. The president hopes to build on the great optimism that hes built within the Business Community in anticipation of the renewed opportunities the president s economic agenda has already created. He and his team are hard at work to produce the results that the American People deserve and voted for last year. He will also travel to nashville, tennessee, where he will lay a wreath at president Andrew Jacksons tomb on his 250th birthday. Thursday, the taoiseach of ireland kenny will come to the white house for the traditional st. Patricks day visit, including a reception in honor of the taoiseach and mrs. Kenny. And as i mentioned, german chancellor merkels visit will resume on friday, and we will have an update on that schedule. With that, im glad to take a few questions. Sean, President Trump has said that under his plan there will be insurance for everybody. How do you square that with the cbo numbers . And is that a promise he can really keep . Mr. Spicer well, i think theres two issues that are important to note on that, katherine. Number one, more and more americans have no choices, so they dont have insurance. Ive mentioned this before. Having a card and having coverage that when you walk into a Doctors Office has a deductible of 15,000, 20,000 a year isnt coverage. Thats a card. That doesnt get you the care you need. That doesnt allow you to get the procedure or the referral that you need from a doctor thats telling you what you need to have happen. Thats vastly different than what we hope to exist, which is giving people who dont have it and lets kind of i think its important to add some context to this. If you think about the individual market that exists right now, the individual insurance market, youve got roughly 30 Million People that exist right now 9 Million People now are on the exchange. That number has gone down. 6. 5 Million People have said they dont want any insurance and theyre going to pay a penalty, and then just under 14 Million People have said that they have applied for a hardship. So youve got almost 20 Million People in america who have said that they dont want obamacare and theyll either pay a penalty or will apply for a hardship. Those are people who dont have it to begin with. The exchanges sought out to cover these people, and were finding out that youve got 9 millionplus who are getting it right now. They have no coverage. And for more and more americans, theyre losing their coverage, their choices are gone. Tax credits in competition that will come in phases two and three in the prongs that we talked about will further drop prices down, will further increase competition. The cbo score didnt take into consideration in that. And again, if you look at their numbers, youve got roughly just over 9 Million People on the exchanges. The cbo number says that 14 Million People in the first year alone will lose coverage. It doesnt take a ton of analysis to recognize that that doesnt make any sense logically. You cant only have 9plus Million People on the exchange and say in the first year alone, when theres no touch to medicaid or anything else, youre just removing the individual mandate that forced people to buy something that they didnt want in the first place, that is going to lead to 14 Million People that people are going to drop off medicare, theyre not going to take their employer that just doesnt add up. In fact, i would argue that if you look at the other part of the equation, the 20 millionplus people who have either chosen to pay a penalty you think about that the 6. 5 Million People are saying either the plan is too costly, the plan doesnt provide coverage. I think a lot of those people, especially when we continue to instill additional coverage, they have more choices, they can pick a plan that actually fits their needs or fits their budget, youre going to see more people want coverage who are going to choose coverage. So i think that the cbo number, a, they have a record that doesnt match up with the ability to count people. Theyre pretty good at dollars, not as good at people. And i think that when you look at the additional phases or prongs of this whole comprehensive approach, that actually changes the equation a lot. Its looking at one piece of a threepart plan, and thats not the entirety of the plan that were looking at. So that doesnt swhicer well, again, i dont think that we we dont do those projections. But i think that theres no question, when you look at the cost, theyre already saying just this alone, just doing the first prong of this will take costs down 10 in the individual market. If you think about it, theyre up 25 in the individual market on average already. This year alone, on just people who are on the exchanges, up 25 . The cbo is saying, just with what were doing on the first prong alone, 10 decline in the individual market. Thats a significant reduction. Thats what were talking about. Bringing costs down, it increases choices. Thats a big deal right now. The problem that you have currently is that these subsidies that people get get them a card that doesnt get them care. And thats what we need to start focusing on, is how many people are actually getting the care they need to deal with the medical concerns of them or their family. And thats not whats happening. Mike. Sean, stating as you did that the primary objection of this white house is that the cbo report doesnt take into account phase two and phase three, are there specifics either in terms of the specific regulatory reforms that the white house is considering and the specific terms of the legislation that you would offer that are out there for people to study as part of this . Because as you surely know, tom cotton among others are skeptical of whether these phases can actually mr. Spicer look, the things that i mentioned earlier allowing people to buy across state lines, to pool their insurance, to expand hsas, to reform the fda all of those things i think unquestionably add competition and choice. Theres no question about it. If one plan can sell that was in maryland, into virginia, where they can seek additional customers, that competition alone invariably brings down costs. And weve seen this in market after market where once you allow competition, by itself, that will bring down costs. It will bring in choice. Right now these Insurance Companies who have been mandated by the government to create certain packages that people dont need, youve got young people that are being told to buy packages that have endoflife care that they dont necessarily need. Youve got people who are in their older phases of life having to buy stuff for maternity that may not be a service that they need at their stage of life. But the problem is that the government got involved in health care and started dictating what needed to happen instead of allowing the choice and allow people to buy a plan that actually was tailored to the needs that they want. Those reforms in themselves unquestionably bring down cost. Theres no question. But i think one of the issues that has to go back to overriding this issue and the president has stated this on numerous occasions if we do nothing, if we just allow this to continue, it will collapse on its own. The cost of it is unsustainable. The premiums are going skyhigh in state after state. And the choices keep going further and further down. And so this idea of comparing it to obamacare is a false choice because they have no choice. The choice is going away and the cost continues to get higher through every phase. And so to assume that the comparison is apples to apples is a false choice. Im not making that. But youve been critical from this podium of the Obama Administration, of democrats, in the way they went about passing the Affordable Care act. In the interest of transparency that you accused them of not following, of shoving it down peoples throat, shouldnt the white house, should hhs put those details out now . Should they put the legislative details out and the subsequent steps in phase three . Mr. Spicer i think the house is working on that in a lot of cases. And as that legislation gets done put the cards on the table now, because theres a lot of skepticism mr. Spicer i think thats a great question for speaker ryan, and i know that hes been working with a team in getting it done. And i think the sooner that we can get all those prongs out there, the better. I agree with you. But i think the big difference, just so were clear, is that we posted this bill online, the speaker had it out there, the president tweeted it out. Anyone in the country and anyone in the world, could read it. Thats a vastly different approach than after its being done, told, after we pass it you can read it, which is what Speaker Pelosi said. Does the white house encourage republicans to put details of the phase three legislation out there now . Mr. Spicer i mean, sure. The more that can get out there on those phases, absolutely. And i know the speaker is working with his members to do that. But i think thats an appropriate question for the speaker to answer, not for me. I know that we are trying to work with them. I know that theres a lot of members that are working with speaker ryan and leader mccarthy and, frankly, on the other chamber as well. But i think that we continue and thats why i think were talking about all of those prongs and all the pieces of them so that we can start making sure that people understand the comprehensive nature of this. Will that happen before theres a vote on the mr. Spicer i think thats a question for speaker ryan to answer. I think the more we can get out there the better, though. Alexis. Can i follow up on what mike was asking about senator cotton . Why is the white house giving senator cotton full running room to go again and again in the media and to denigrate the house plan without bringing him in, discussing with him what mike was just bringing up alternatives that hes suggesting . Why does he have special dispensation to go out . Mr. Spicer i dont think he has special dispensation. Its a free country. He can say what he wants. But if you brought him in here mr. Spicer no, i think our team has been working with his team as they are with senator pauls team and anyone else who has ideas. Weve been engaged in a very, very robust discussion with members in both chambers who have ideas to move this thing forward. I dont think we are able to tell people what they can and cannot engage in a free society. And senator cotton is obviously able to make any comments that hed like. Wed obviously continue to like to work with him. And i think the team will continue to reach out to both he and his team to try to get his ideas on this. But the president spent time talking to him about his ideas on immigration. Has he called him . Has the Vice President called senator cotton . Mr. Spicer i know that weve had a very, very robust discussion with members of the house and senate. I would have to get specific details of what weve done with specifically senator cotton. Is senator cruz coming today . Mr. Spicer i believe he id have to check on that. I know that there was a group of individuals. I dont have that list in front of me. Senators . Mr. Spicer i will get back to you on that, alexis, i promise. The snowstorm kind of shifted a bunch of stuff up, so i dont want to start getting in front of who actually can be here and who cant. But i will make sure that we get those details out and we have can you get it to the pool . Mr. Spicer