Health bill forecast to hit millions in California
Number of uninsured would soar if measure passes, analysis shows
The uninsured population in California would rise from 9 to 21 percent in the next five years if the Senate health care bill were to take effect, according to a new analysis by the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.
About 4.3 million more Californians would go without insurance under the GOP plan, the study found. The total number of uninsured would rise from 3.1 million to 7.4 million by 2022.
Because California moved more aggressively than most other states to implement the Affordable Care Act — accepting increased federal dollars to expand the Medi-Cal insurance program for the poor, and creating the state insurance exchange Covered California — the potential loss in coverage in the state would be more dramatic than in many other states, according to the report.
“California has been as aggressive as any state in getting more people insured under the Affordable Care Act,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which analyzes health care policy. “The
Senate health bill would essentially reverse those gains.”
Since the ACA was implemented in 2014, California reduced the rate of its uninsured residents from 17 percent to a record low 7 percent, according to recent estimates by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Urban Institute figures are slightly different than the CDC’s numbers because the former includes only the non-elderly — adults under 64, and children — while the latter includes the entire population.
Nationally, the percentage of uninsured, non-elderly Americans would increase from 11 to 20 percent — from 31 million people today to 55 million people in 2022, the Urban Institute projection found.
The study, released Wednesday, looks at the impact of the proposed health care legislation — which was introduced by Senate Republicans last week — on each of the 50 states. So it offers a more localized glimpse into the bill’s potential effects than did the Congressional Budget Office report released this week. The budget office found that 22 million more Americans would be uninsured under the Senate plan by 2026.
The Senate bill, called the Better Care Reconciliation Act, would drastically reduce longterm federal spending on Medicaid. Health policy experts say that would put financial pressure on states to either kick people off the program or cut benefits for the entire population. In California, federal spending would drop 41 percent by 2022, from $39 billion to $23 billion, the analysis found.
The Senate measure would also change eligibility requirements to receive federal subsidies to buy insurance plans on Covered California, leading to tens of thousands fewer people receiving the financial assistance. And many of those who would continue receiving subsidies would be paying higher premiums and out-ofpocket costs, according to analyses by Kaiser.
Those buying a plan through Covered California, for instance, would see their deductible nearly triple from $2,500 to $7,350, according to a separate analysis released Wednesday by Covered California and the National Academy for State Health Policy.
The House has already passed a health care bill that would also substantially increase the number of uninsured in California.