Washington – Republicans on Tuesday defended their plan to dismantle Obamacare after a bipartisan report showed 14 million Americans would lose medical insurance by next year under their proposal even as it reduces the budget deficit.
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The U.S. Congressional Budget Office, a research agency, on Monday forecast that by 2026, the number of people without health insurance would increase by 24 million people if the House of Representatives’ legislation to replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act is adopted.
The Trump administration defended the replacement plan, saying it will offer consumers more choices.
Hospital and insurer stocks fell Tuesday morning, with Community Health Systems Inc off 3.2 percent and Tenet Healthcare Corp off 5.4 percent.
Medicaid and Medicare specialists WellCare Health Plans Inc and Centene Corp were both off 1.9 percent.
CBO’s report complicated the plan by congressional Republicans who have vowed for seven years to undo Obamacare. President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy expanded health insurance to about 20 million Americans.
The measure faces opposition from a range of Republicans – from conservatives who think it does not go far enough to moderates concerned about the impact on coverage and costs.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney dismissed CBO’s ability to analyze health care coverage and said the focus should not be on how many people are insured.
“Coverage is not the end. People don’t get better with coverage, they get better with care,” he told MSNBC.
Separately, a White House analysis showed 26 million people would lose coverage over the next 10 years, Politico reported, citing an Office of Management and Budget document.
Mulvaney told CNN he was unaware of that document.
President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare and has vowed to provide insurance for everybody, has yet to comment on the report.
He was scheduled to speak on Tuesday with Joseph Swedish, the chief executive officer of health insurer Anthem Inc, and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price as well as top House Republican leaders.
Price told NBC on Tuesday: “Every single American will have access and have the financial feasibility to purchase it.”
Before the CBO issued its report, House Republicans had hoped to vote soon on the bill before sending it to the Senate, where its outlook is uncertain.
Overall, CBO projected that 52 million people would be uninsured by 2026 if the bill became law, compared with 28 million who would not have coverage that year if Obama’s Affordable Care Act remained unchanged.
CBO also said federal deficits would fall by $337 billion between 2017 and 2026 under the Republican bill.
Democrats say the plan could hurt the elderly, poor and working families while giving tax cuts for the rich.
Doctors, hospitals and other medical providers as well as patient advocates have urged lawmakers to abandon it.
People will lose insurance, if they decide not to buy any.
ObamaDoesntcare is a big liberal Failure!
the only ones that will “lose” healthcare protection will be the ones that were “forced” or “mandated” by Obama(no)care to sign up or face a hefty ‘penalty”. So now they will opt out of their “forced” payment.
and for all the other American citizens the premiums will drop drastically
Will it reduce costs for those that are already insured? They seem to leave out this important fact. You see there are no free lunches. You can’t force 175 million Americans to subsidize 24 million. Its just unfair. So I did not see the bill, but if it reduces costs for us hard working middle class then fine its a fair and good bill. If i doesn’t reduce costs and everybody looses then its crazy. An article printed a couple of days ago seemed to indicate that it would reduce costs but its still unclear.
But what about a society social requirement to help the poor?
1) How far and extensive must that go? Can we limit that to stuff directly hazardous to ones well being as opposed to covering very crucial but not life threatening stuff?
2) Is it a zero sum game? The poor can’t pay anything? Would a $5 copay really be so hard?
3) Under the ACA the burden is placed highly on the middle class. We all pay an equal amount of dollars so that the poor can be covered. So someone earning 80K would pay an extra 1k to cover the poor and so would someone earning 500k pay 1k for the poor.
4) Who is-classified as poor? Is the net income of my kollel friend lower than mine?
Thank you #1 & 2 for pointing out that millions will OPT out of the formaly mandadted insurance. Not LOSE insurance.
Sorry VIN, you shouldn’t use a leftist propagandist headline.
As a conservative on healthcare matters, I personally don’t really like the bill other than the Obama mandate being lifted.