That is right, according to a new study by the Urban Institue, nearly 36,000 people could die every year if Obamacare is repealed. The current Republican plan is to repeal Obamacare early in 2017, however despite campaigning against Obamacare for years now, Republicans still don’t any plan to replace Obamacare. In fact, there current plan can be described as something like, repeal and then figure out what to replace it with over the next few years. It goes without saying that this approach will put at risk the millions of people who currently rely on Obamacare for their health insurance.
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If Obamacare is repealed, up to 30 million people will lose their health insurance
The Urban Institute study estimates that if congressional Republicans repeal just the fiscal provisions of the law, “the number of uninsured people would rise from 28.9 million to 58.7 million in 2019, an increase of 29.8 million people (103 percent).” And of these nearly 30 million newly uninsured Americans, “22.5 million people become uninsured as a result of eliminating the tax credits, the Medicaid expansion, and the individual mandate. The additional 7.3 million people become uninsured because of the near collapse of the nongroup insurance market.”
And repealing only the fiscal provisions of Obamacare would actually be worse for Americans in the individual health insurance market than a total repeal of the law would be. Because of Obamacare’s provisions protecting people with preexisting health conditions cannot operate without the tax credits and the individual mandate. The individual mandate portion of Obamacare is essential because it encourages people to purchase health insurance before they become sick. Without it, many healthy individuals will wait until they are sick to buy insurance, effectively draining all the money out of an insurance pool they haven’t paid into. This would result in the collapse of insurance pools.
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Here are a few key findings from the study:
- The number of uninsured people would rise from 28.9 million to 58.7 million in 2019, an increase of 29.8 million people (103 percent). The share of nonelderly people without insurance would increase from 11 percent to 21 percent, a higher rate of uninsurance than before the ACA because of the disruption to the nongroup insurance market.
- Of the 29.8 million newly uninsured, 22.5 million people become uninsured as a result of eliminating the premium tax credits, the Medicaid expansion, and the individual mandate. The additional 7.3 million people become uninsured because of the near collapse of the nongroup insurance market.
- Eighty-two percent of the people becoming uninsured would be in working families, 38 percent would be ages 18 to 34, and 56 percent would be non-Hispanic whites. Eighty percent of adults becoming uninsured would not have college degrees.
- There would be 12.9 million fewer people with Medicaid or CHIP coverage in 2019.
- Approximately 9.3 million people who would have received tax credits for private nongroup health coverage in 2019 would no longer receive assistance.
- Federal government spending on health care for the nonelderly would be reduced by $109 billion in 2019 and by $1.3 trillion from 2019 to 2028 because the Medicaid expansion, premium tax credits, and cost-sharing assistance would be eliminated.
- State spending on Medicaid and CHIP would fall by $76 billion between 2019 and 2028. In addition, because of the larger number of uninsured, financial pressures on state and local governments and health care providers (hospitals, physicians, pharmaceutical manufacturers, etc.) would increase dramatically. This financial pressure would result from the newly uninsured seeking an additional $1.1 trillion in uncompensated care between 2019 and 2028.
