WASHINGTON, D.C. — The bill Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), intends to bring up to the Senate next week would result in 32 million fewer Americans having health coverage, health insurance premiums doubling and the insurance market destabilizing over the next 10 years according to a report the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published Wednesday.
The bill, entitled the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act, is based on a bill Congress passed in 2015 and that President Barack Obama vetoed last year.
In its summary the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation wrote:
CBO and JCT estimate that enacting the legislation would affect insurance coverage and premiums primarily in these ways:
- The number of people who are uninsured would increase by 17 million in 2018, compared with the number under current law. That number would increase to 27 million in 2020, after the elimination of the ACA’s expansion of eligibility for Medicaid and the elimination of subsidies for insurance purchased through the marketplaces established by the ACA, and then to 32 million in 2026.
- Average premiums in the nongroup market (for individual policies purchased through the marketplaces or directly from insurers) would increase by roughly 25 percent—relative to projections under current law—in 2018. The increase would reach about 50 percent in 2020, and premiums would about double by 2026.
In CBO and JCT’s estimation, under this legislation, about half of the nation’s population would live in areas having no insurer participating in the nongroup market in 2020 because of downward pressure on enrollment and upward pressure on premiums. That share would continue to increase, extending to about three-quarters of the population by 2026.
