Health care experts in California say the independent analysis released Monday of the Republican draft to repeal the Affordable Care Act reveals just how severely the GOP proposal to replace the current health care law will hurt millions of residents of the Golden State — particularly older, low-income Californians between 50 and 64.
The Congressional Budget Office’s 37-page report on the plan by House Speaker Paul Ryan, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, and the GOP leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives concluded it would result in 14 million more uninsured Americans in 2018 — and 24 million fewer insured within a decade.
But the report indicated that by 2026 the plan would reduce the federal deficit by $337 billion — in part because so many people would lose their health care.
“Amazingly, the GOP proposal would lead to more uninsured Americans than there were prior to passage of the Affordable Care Act,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer health care advocate group.
But the CBO estimates that some Americans may end up paying less for health insurance under the GOP bill. By 2026, the report said, average premiums for anyone who gets their health coverage from the individual market instead of through their employer would be 10 percent lower than under Obamacare.
But that’s largely because many older consumers — who have higher medical costs, which increases premiums for everyone — would no longer be able to afford health plans. So health insurance for others would be cheaper.
Since the 2010 law, better known as Obamacare, kicked into full gear on Jan. 1, 2014, at least 20 million Americans, including 5 million Californians, gained insurance coverage, most of them through a provision that expands Medicaid — called Medi-Cal in California..
“An astonishing 24 million more Americans will be uninsured, living sicker, dying younger, and being one emergency away from financial ruin,” Wright said of the CBO projections. “The scale of consumers losing coverage will have ripple effects throughout the health care system, with public health and economic consequences for everyone.”
Of the estimated 1.5 million Californians who have signed up for a private healthcare plan this year through the state’s insurance exchange, called Covered California, at least 85 percent receive federal subsidies. But the CBO report shows that those who get tax credits on average would see a 40 percent reduction in the financial help they get to afford coverage.
Even more worrisome, said Wright, is the affect the GOP plan will have on the state’s 14 million enrollees in Medi-Cal — almost one-third of the state’s population — and nearly half of Central Valley residents.
The health care program for the poor was expanded under Obamacare to currently include around 4 million Californians who don’t have dependent children.
“The CBO analysis would cut Medicaid (nationally) by $880 billion over a decade,” Wright said. “No member of the California Congressional delegation, of either party, should vote for such a proposal that would do such disproportionate harm to their own constituents and to our state’s health system on which we all rely.”
Not everyone who has supported the Ryan plan has thrown in the towel.
“I do not have a lot of confidence in CBO forecasts,” said Sally Pipes, president and CEO of the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute, a think tank that promotes limited government. “They use a static forecasting model and are showing 24 million losing coverage over 10 years. I think it is greatly exaggerated.”
And while the CBO’s premium increase estimates are 15-20 percent for 2018 and 2019, she said, “then the increases decline,” she added, noting that “the average exchange increase this year under Obamacare is 22 percent.”
