18 million more uninsured if ACA dies, not replaced

WASHINGTON — Insurance premiums would soar for millions of Americans and 18 million more would be uninsured in just one year if Republicans scuttle much of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul without a replacement, Congress’ budget analysts said Tuesday.

Spotlighting potential perils for Republicans, the report immediately became a flashing hazard light for this year’s effort by Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers to annul Obama’s law and institute their own alternative.

It also swiftly became political fodder in what is expected to be one of this year’s biggest battles in Congress.

Republicans have produced several outlines for how they’d redraft Obama’s 2010 statute, but they’ve failed to unite behind one plan. President-elect Trump and GOP congressional leaders have at times offered clashing descriptions of their top goal.

Tuesday’s evaluation came from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, joined by Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation.

Together, they analyzed a Republican written bill, vetoed by Obama last January, that would have erased major portions of his overhaul. Those included tax penalties for people who fail to buy insurance and for larger companies that don’t cover workers, federal subsidies to help consumers buy policies on the law’s online marketplaces and an expansion of Medicaid coverage for low-income people.

The new report said under such a measure, premiums for individual policies — excluding the coverage many workers get from employers — would swell by up to 25 percent the first year after enactment and double by 2026.

However, Republicans say there’s a big difference between 2016 and this year’s plan: Last year’s version would not have replaced Obama’s statute with a GOP alternative.