Budget office releases health plan figures
Trump and senior Republican lawmakers that no one would be harmed if Obamacare is repealed and replaced.
And it provides potent ammunition to critics of the House GOP plan, just as Republican leaders are scrambling to get it to a vote next week.
“Coverage matters when it comes to preventing disease and ensuring health and well-being,” said Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “Unfortunately, this bill, as written, will result in more people losing coverage they desperately need. … We know that the absence of health insurance translates into premature death for many.”
The current law is credited with extending health coverage to more than 20 million previously uninsured Americans and driving the nation’s uninsured rate to the lowest levels ever recorded.
In the first nine months of 2016, just 8.8 percent of U.S. residents lacked health coverage, survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show. That was down from 16 percent in 2010, when President Obama signed the health care law
Under the House GOP plan, the percentage of uninsured would surge back to 19 percent by 2026, higher than before Obamacare, according to the CBO. That is in part because consumers would no longer be required to have insurance and in part because millions of Americans would lose financial assistance to get coverage.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price disputed the CBO conclusions, saying they failed to take into account other changes Republicans are planning to make through the regulatory process and in subsequent legislation.
“We strenuously disagree with the report,” he told reporters outside the White House. “It’s just not believable.”
Congressional Republicans meanwhile defended the health care legislation and even praised the CBO report, focusing on the estimated savings and the promise of lower premiums.
“Our plan is not about forcing people to buy expensive, one-size-fits-all coverage,” said House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). “It is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford.”
The CBO estimates that some Americans may see less expensive health insurance plans under the House Republican bill.
By 2026, budget analysts said, average premiums for consumers who buy health coverage on their own rather than getting it from an employer, would be 10 percent lower than under the current law.
But that reduction would be driven in part by the increasing prevalence of health plans with high deductibles, which would be made possible by provisions in the GOP legislation that loosen requirements on health plans.
Also making health insurance cheaper on average, according to the CBO, would be the departure from the market of some older consumers who could no longer afford health plans. Older consumers have higher medical costs, which drive up premiums for everyone.
The GOP plan provides less assistance to older, low-income Americans while at the same time allowing insurers to charge older customers up to five times more than younger consumers, compared to three times more under Obamacare. That change is expected to benefit younger, healthier consumers.
At the same time, GOP health legislation would produce a historic retrenchment in Medicaid, the government safety net health program for the poorest Americans.
Obamacare made billions of dollars in federal aid available to states, which allowed a major expansion of coverage to low-income childless adults, a population that traditionally was not covered by Medicaid.
The House GOP plan would scrap that aid and cap future federal support for Medicaid, delivering $880 billion in savings over the next decade, the budget office estimates.
The retrenchment would force states to dramatically scale back their safety nets, the budget office concluded. And it would likely result in 14 million fewer poor people covered by Medicaid by 2026.
The safety net cuts also allow for a series of major tax cuts, including the elimination of two taxes on high-income Americans that were used to fund Obamacare’s coverage expansion.