GETTING THE FACTS
By Amy Sherman Politifact Ohio
A liberal super PAC says repealing the Affordable Care Act could lead to dire consequences for the health of Ohioans and their economy.
“Repealing the Affordable Care Act — and with it, Ohio’s Medicaid expansion — could cost Ohio more than 81,000 jobs, jeopardize nearly 1 million Ohioans’ health care coverage, and leave more than 220,000 Ohioans with mental illness or substance use disorders without insurance,” claimed the For Our Future PAC on its Stop Mike DeWine website.
For Our Future PAC, launched by California billion- aire Tom Steyer and unions, is targeting Republicans includ- ing Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, who is running for governor against Demo- crat Richard Cordray.
DeWine unsuccessfully sued in an effort to overturn the health care law. Republicans have repeatedly tried and failed to achieve a repeal.
We found the statements require more explanation about the impact of repeal- ing the Affordable Care Act.
‘Could cost Ohio ... 81,000 jobs’
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute published an analysis related to jobs and the Affordable Care Act in March 2017. At the time, the Republicans were pursuing the American Health Care Act, a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The bill never became law.
The first thing to know about economist Josh Bivens’ analysis is that he didn’t predict layoffs but instead came up with a rough esti- mate of the potential drag on job growth. For Ohio, that number was 81,385 jobs.
The For Our Future website doesn’t take into account caveats in the report that stated: “Given all of this uncertainty, we present our find- ings as a drag on potential job growth, rather than as clear predictions of ‘jobs lost.’”
George Washington University experts came up with a lower estimate for job losses in Ohio by 2026 based on the House bill and a higher one for the Senate bill.
However, other experts have expressed doubts that repeal would lead to such a high number of job growth losses.
Joe A ntos, a health care expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said such analyses take “an extreme view that everything is going to collapse.”
Antos said if the Affordable Care Act were repealed, he would expect initial reduction in employment in the health care sector but some increase in other sectors. through the budget reconciliation process, an approach considered by Congress. The Institute predicted an increase of the uninsured population in Ohio of 964,000.
However, the Urban Institute has done a more recent analysis of full repeal and nationally found a smaller number for how many would be uninsured due to policy changes. It didn’t publish new estimates for the states; however, Linda Blumberg, a health policy expert at the Urban Institute, said it would be lower than 964,000.
There are about 1 mil- lion people in Ohio who are insured through the “On balance, what hap- Affordable Care Act, includpens to employment, I don’t ing about 230,000 people know,” he said. through the marketplace and
Antos said that the prealmost 700,000 as a result of dictions about job losses by expanded Medicaid. Democrats are similar to the Repeal wo ld leave predictions by Republicans in more than 220,000 Ohio2010 that the requirements for ans with mental illness or small firms to cover employsubstance use disorders ees would create massive diswithout insurance’ ruption, but that ultimately This part of the statement didn’t happen. (We have fact- refers to research by Harvard checked several claims that health economics professor the Affordable Care Act is a Richard Frank and New York “jobs killer” and repeatedly University Dean Sherry Glied. found the evidence fell short.) They said in January 2017
Two experts that repealing the Affordable on health care Care Act would have “stark economics, Jean effects on those with behavAbraham at the ioral health illnesses.” University of MinNationwide, the research- nesota and Anne ers estimated that approx- Beeson Royalty at imately 1.25 million people Indiana Univerwith serious mental disorders sity, reviewed lit- and about 2.8 million Amerierature and concluded the cans with a substance use disACA had minimal effect on order, would lose some or all employment, hours of work of their insurance coverage and compensation. if the federal health care law
Repeal would ‘jeoparwas repealed. dize nearly 1 million OhioThey found that repealing
health care coverage’ the health care law would For Our Future pointed to particularly harm states hit analysis by the Urban Insti- hard by opioid deaths, includ- tute in 2017 that analyzed the ing Ohio where 220,512 peoimplications of partial repeal ple with addiction or mental We are now working with PolitiFact, a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics. We will check into what they say and tell you whether it’s true.
health disorders have coverage through the law.
Since there is no Obamacare replacement bill under serious consideration, it’s unknown whether all of these people would end up uninsured.
Our ruling
For Our Future Ohio PAC said “repealing the Affordable Care Act — and with it, Ohio’s Medicaid expansion — could cost Ohio more than 81,000 jobs, jeopardize nearly 1 million Ohioans’ health care coverage, and leave more than 220,000 Ohioans with mental illness or substance use disorders without insurance.”
The statement about jobs ignores caveats in the study by the Economics Policy Institute. The study came up with a number about drag on job growth under a GOP scenario pushed in 2017 but that never became law. It does not refer to job layoffs.
About 1 million Ohioans are currently covered by the Affordable Care Act. An academic study found that about 220,000 Ohioans with addiction or mental health disorders have coverage through the law. But since there isn’t a repeal-and-replace bill under consideration, it’s difficult to predict how many Ohioans would be left uninsured.
We rate this claim Half True.