One of the questions everyone is asking about Trump’s version of Obamacare is whether the new and improved version of the plan will lead to people dropping their insurance—or being forced to go without coverage.
The Congressional Budget Office released a report Monday afternoon that sheds light on that question. The Republicans’ American Healthcare Act, the supposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, will save the government more than $300 billion, but it might cost millions of people their health insurance, according to the CBO.
According to the CBO’s estimates, a whopping 14 million fewer people would have health insurance under the GOP’s replacement plan, leaving the government off the hook for a huge chunk of what would be subsidized medical expenses.
That savings is a function of the fact that a key part of the Republican plan repeals the so-called “health insurance mandate,” which forces people who forgo insurance to pay a several-hundred-dollar fine at tax time.
If people don’t have to pay not to have insurance, they’re more likely to choose go without insurance, the CBO concludes.
That suggests that the health insurance mandate, not the benefits of Obamacare plans (like coverage for pre-existing conditions, or extensions of parental coverage) is ultimately the driving force behind the law. The report seems to indicate that people who use the government-subsidized plans simply aren’t thrilled with the product.
Later on, the CBO says, that number of uninsured could expand to more than 50 million, because as the current subsidies die out, fewer people will be able to afford the increasing health care premiums.
That’s also bad news: the impetus behind the Republicans’ “repeal and replace” mantra was that Obamacare policies had gotten prohibitively expensive. Every insurer on the state-based marketplaces had increased premiums by at least 50%, year-over-year. Even the “nicer” Gold and Platinum policies had five-digit deductibles (or operated as HMO-only, limiting care).
If the new plan isn’t more affordable, it won’t solve the problem.
The GOP is, naturally, scoffing at the CBO’s dire predictions, and they fairly point out that while the CBO did say more than 24 million people would have insurance because of Obamacare, only 9 million more people are now insured.
