Repealing Obamacare: 18M More People Without Insurance, Skyrocketing Premiums, Report Says

Repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with a plan similar to one previously proposed by congressional Republicans would immediately leave millions of Americans without health insurance and cause premiums to balloon over the next eight years, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

In 2018, the first year a repeal could go into effect, 18 million more Americans would suddenly find themselves without health insurance, and premiums for individual policies would increase by 20 to 25, the report says. By 2026, according to the report, the number of uninsured people would increase by 32 million, and those individual premiums would be 50 percent more expensive than they are now.

Republicans, now in control of the House, Senate and presidency after the election of Donald Trump, have vowed to undo President Obama's signature domestic policy achievement and have already taken steps to fast-track the repeal of the law, known as Obamacare.

In a Quinnipiac poll conducted a week and a half ago, 18 percent of voters said they supported a full repeal of the health care law while 47 percent said they wanted parts of it rolled back. Democratic lawmakers over the weekend held rallies across the country to protest a repeal of the law.

While Republican party leaders have yet to propose a specific replacement plan, the budget office used a repeal bill passed by Congress in 2015 — and vetoed by President Obama — as a baseline to calculate its estimates. That bill would have eliminated penalties for people who don't have health insurance while maintaining provisions that require insurance companies to cover people with preexisting conditions.

“Eliminating the mandate penalties and the subsidies while retaining the market reforms would destabilize the nongroup market, and the effect would worsen over time,” the report says.

Sherry Glied, a New York University professor who has worked in the White House on health care policy for Democratic and Republican presidents, told Patch that a health care market could not sustain cutting subsidies while keeping other regulations.

"It’s not a surprising analysis given what CBO has done in the past and what most people who are analysts of this would come out," Glied told Patch. "If you take away the subsidies but leave all the regulations in place, the insurance market is going to explode."

Read the Congressional Budget Office's full report here.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 45 percent of Americans think the health care law is a good idea, a higher percentage than those who think it isn't and the highest approval rating for the law since it went into effect.

"There is a not insignificant number of (Republican lawmakers), both in the House and the Senate, who have said, 'We’re not going to repeal the law unless we have some replacement in the works,'" Glied told Patch. "For that group of people, this report is important."

Immediate reaction to the report from lawmakers was split along party lines.

“Republicans need to wake up to the brutal impact that repealing the ACA will have on the lives of their constituents," Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California and House Minority Leader, said in a statement. "Behind each of these statistics are stories of millions of Americans whose lives hang in the balance. Republicans will have to decide whether they are really willing to hurt tens of millions of Americans, just to satisfy their blind ideological obsession with repealing the Affordable Care Act."

Republicans criticized the report, saying it didn't take into account other reforms Republicans could pass.

“Today’s report shows only part of the equation — a repeal of Obamacare without any transitional policies or reforms to address costs and empower patients,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement. “Republicans support repealing Obamacare and implementing step-by-step reforms so that Americans have access to affordable health care.”

Rep. Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana, said the budget office "misses the point."

"Obamacare will be replaced with lower costs and more choices," he tweeted.

Republicans have yet to propose a replacement plan, even as they have expedited the process of repealing the existing health care law. GOP lawmakers have even, at times, been at odds with Trump about what specific legislation to implement.

Further complicating matters, Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, has found himself embroiled in a series of accusations that he bought shares in a medical device company and then introduced legislation to help the company.

Price is scheduled to testify at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pension on Wednesday.

This story will be updated.

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