The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a report today on how repealing the Affordable Care Act would affect health insurance coverage and premiums for millions of Americans.
The CBO predicts that partial repeal of Obamacare would affect insurance coverage and premiums primarily in these ways:
- The number of people who are uninsured would increase by 18 million in the first new plan year following enactment of the bill. Later, after the elimination of the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid eligibility and of subsidies for insurance purchased through the ACA marketplaces, that number would increase to 27 million, and then to 32 million in 2026.
- Premiums in the nongroup market (for individual policies purchased through the marketplaces or directly from insurers) would increase by 20 percent to 25 percent—relative to projections under current law—in the first new plan year following enactment. The increase would reach about 50 percent in the year following the elimination of the Medicaid expansion and the marketplace subsidies, and premiums would about double by 2026.
The CBO concludes, 32 million more people would be uninsured and premiums would be twice as high ― again, relative to what they would be if Obamacare stayed on the books.
The Huffington Post reported that Republican leaders reacted to the report by emphasizing that this is a worse case scenario that assumes Republicans can’t stabilize insurance markets during the transition and have no replacement to Obamacare in place
“This projection is meaningless, as it takes into account no measures to replace the law nor actions that the incoming administration will take to revitalize the individual market that has been decimated by Obamacare,” AshLee Strong, spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), said on Tuesday.
In a statement Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said, “Nonpartisan statistics don’t lie: it’s crystal clear that the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act will increase health care costs for millions of Americans and kick millions more off of their health insurance.”
Republicans have yet to make it clear quite how repeal would work and whether here would be an alternative in place.
