CBO: 24M won’t be insured

GOP lauds report’s finding that deficits will be reduced under plan.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that by 2026 as many as 24 million fewer Americans will be without health insurance if Congress scraps the 2010 health law and replaces it with a more free-market approach backed by House GOP leaders.

The report, released Monday and produced by the office that calculates the cost and impact of all new laws, says by 2026 the number of Americans without health coverage from the current law — either through the individual market or from Medicaid — would increase to 52 million compared to 28 million today.

But the report also had some good news for Repub-

licans, projecting that the bill would reduce future deficits. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., seized on that part of the report, saying the calculations confirm that the bill “will empower Americans with access, choice, and affordability.”

Overall, though, the report contradicts statements by President Donald Trump that no one will lose coverage under the plan. Administration officials in recent days, perhaps sensing some eye-raising numbers, made comments about false projections in previous reports from the CBO.

“If you’re looking to the CBO for accuracy, you’re looking in the wrong place,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said last week.

According to the report, millions of Americans would lose coverage they currently have through individual insurance policies or Medicaid, the joint federal and state program which provides health care to low-income people.

Signed into law by former President Barack Obama, the law expanded health insurance through federally subsidized individual insurance policies sold to middle-income people through federal marketplaces, and expanding Medicaid eligibility to allow families of four earning as much as $34,000 a year to qualify.

Gov. John Kasich relied on the additional Medicaid dollars to extend coverage to 700,000 low-income people in Ohio. Kasich has emerged as a major critic of the House Republican efforts to scale back Medicaid coverage.

The CBO report said if Republicans scrap the federal requirement that people either buy subsidized policies in the federal marketplaces or face a penalty, as many as 14 million Americans would not buy individual policies. By contrast, those staying in the federal marketplaces would see premiums on their individual policies increase by as much as 20 percent by 2020.

The report, however, did indicate that if Republicans gain approval of their bill, individual premiums would begin to decline after 2020. The price dip would result from a GOP plan to funnel $100 billion to the states during the next decade to provide financial help for high-risk people, and because younger and healthier people would buy more individual policies.

In addition, the report predicts that under the House Republican leadership bill the federal deficit would decline by $337 billion during the next decade. Those savings would be generated by lower federal spending for Medicaid and scrapping the tax increases — largely on the wealthy — that were used by Democrats in 2010 to finance the law.

Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Niles, charged that the report shows the bill backed by President Donald Trump and House GOP leaders “will rip health care away from 24 million Americans,” complaining that people in Ohio who voted for Trump last November “did not cast their ballots to inflict this harm on millions of their fellow neighbors.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, released a statement saying the report “affirms the fears I’ve heard from Ohioans that this plan will kick millions off their insurance and drive up costs for others, especially older Americans.”

But McCarthy said the bill will result in lower premiums and provide an affordable alternative to Obamacare. “After 10 years, premiums will be 10 percent lower than under Obamacare even while we reduce the deficit by $337 billion and make Medicaid solvent with an $880 billion reduction in spending,” he predicted.

The Republican bill would scrap federal requirements that small companies offer health insurance and instead offer a refundable tax credit ranging from $2,000 a year to $4,000 a year to allow individuals to buy insurance. The older the person, the higher the tax credit would be.

In addition, the GOP bill would eliminate Medicaid expansion by 2020 and instead provide states with a capped federal contribution for each beneficiary based on how much the state spent on health care in 2016.

The overwhelming majority of Americans receive health insurance through plans provided by their employers or from Medicare, the federal program that pays health costs for the elderly. The 2010 law was designed to extend coverage to millions of people who work for small companies which do not insure their workers or did not qualify for Medicaid.