23 million more uninsured with GOP health bill, analysts say

Kaine is proposing to set up a federally funded Individual Market Protection Fund that would help pay the cost of expensive health care when a patient’s expenses reached certain catastrophic thresholds.

“The only savings that we see, according to the CBO, was something like $130 billion, but keep in mind, the only way of doing that is to take 23 million people off of Medicaid”. And that really hurt that bill’s chances. The ACHA only narrowly passed the House and was greeted lukewarmly by the Senate, so a key part of the effort appears to assist 21 GOP lawmakers who cast a tough vote to support the proposal.

PEARSON: Well, not significant changes. It found that the federal deficit would be reduced by $119 billion over the next decade under the bill, with 14 million more people uninsured over the next year, 19 million in 2020 and 23 million in 2026.

We can understand why this is a frustrating experience, but it seems odd to blame the problems with the state exchange on the federal law.

PEARSON: Yeah, by 2026. But if they have a gap in coverage, they still could face higher, unaffordable premiums for a year.

He added, “Whatever CBO says about the House bill today, this much is absolutely clear: the status quo under Obamacare is completely unacceptable and totally unsustainable”.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, however, said that the score is “wrong”. Does that complicate things for the CBO?

PEARSON: They absolutely are guessing how states will behave and how insurers will behave as a result of new rules. Reaction on Wall Street was muted, with shares of hospitals affected by the cuts to Medicaid, like Community Health Systems, and health insurers specializing in Medicaid, such as Molina Healthcare and Centene Corp unchanged in light after-hours trading. So CBO had to predict how states would react.

“Over time, it would become more hard for less healthy people (including people with preexisting medical conditions) in those states to purchase insurance because their premiums would continue to increase rapidly”, the report said.

CORNISH: What does this report say in terms of premiums? “The unprofessional evaluation that I put in my mind was I did not believe any state – based upon the conditions that would be required for them to go – would be accepting that challenge”.

The CBO also notes that the AHCA could mean some Americans would buy coverage that doesn’t cover “major medical risks”. Premiums will decrease by about 4 percent over 10 years.

The House-passed measure now pending in the Senate would dramatically reduce Medicaid spending by $880 billion over the coming decade, as enrollments gradually tumbled and other mostly low-income adults would no longer be allowed to sign up in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that currently offer the special coverage.

GOP conservatives and moderates are divided ideologically in the Senate just as they were in the House, where the repeal-and-replace bill squeaked by. “That’s plainly what CBO says”.

Most of those losing coverage would be beneficiaries of Medicaid, the health care program for poor and disabled people, though people buying individual policies or getting coverage at work would also become uninsured.

Another change would allow states to decide whether to require insurers to cover health benefits such as maternity care and prescription drugs that are mandatory under current law. That is a true fact within the score.

Moreover, the health-care plans in the ACA and the AHCA are not necessarily comparable. What were they looking for?

PEARSON: I think this is generally consistent with what most people expected.

Sarah Kliff: Twenty-three million is kind of the big headline number. The CBO score raises the stakes for Republican senators now working on their own version of the legislation.

Democrats quickly highlighted what they see as the outcome of the Republican plan highlighted in the CBO score. Sen. There were reports last week that the House might have to vote again on a health care bill if the CBO projection found that the bill wouldn’t save at least $2 billion.