WASHINGTON — Critics of GOP health care legislation got fresh ammunition from a report that estimates the bill would increase the ranks of the uninsured by 14 million people next year alone, and 24 million over a decade.

The findings from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office could make prospects for the legislation backed by President Donald Trump even tougher, with a few House and Senate conservatives already in open revolt and moderate Republicans queasy about big cuts to the Medicaid safety net for the poor.

But with the legislation headed for votes in the House Budget Committee within days and floor action next week, its supporters at the White House and on Capitol Hill showed no sign of retreat. Instead, they attacked the parts of the CBO report they didn’t like, while touting the more favorable findings, including smaller deficits from their bill and lower premiums over time.

“I’m pretty encouraged by it, it actually exceeded my expectations,” House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said on Fox News Channel shortly after the report was released Monday evening.

Ryan said the CBO findings about millions losing coverage were to be expected, because the GOP legislation removes the penalty in former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act aimed at coercing people into buying coverage.

“If we’re not going to force someone to buy something they don’t want to buy they’re not going to buy it, and that’s kind of obvious,” Ryan said.

The GOP legislation would use tax credits to help consumers buy health coverage, expand health savings accounts, phase out an expansion of Medicaid and cap that program for the future, end some requirements for health plans under Obama’s law, and scrap a number of taxes.

Ryan pointed to other CBO figures, including that the GOP bill reduces federal deficits by $337 billion over a decade, and begins to bring down insurance premiums by around 10 percent starting in 2020, though that comes only after premiums sharply rise in 2018 and 2019.

Democrats scoffed at Ryan’s positive take, calling the CBO analysis damning evidence that Republicans are interested only in giving hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the rich, which their bill would accomplish, while yanking health coverage from the poor.