The headline findings in the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the Obamacare repeal bill produced by House Republicans are brutal enough: 24 million Americans losing their health coverage, healthcare costs soaring for many millions more, and the evisceration of Medicaid, all while handing the richest Americans a handsome tax cut.
But in its fine print, the CBO report identified at least seven other ways the GOP proposal would damage the US healthcare system. Some would have effects reaching far beyond the middle- and low-income buyers of insurance on the individual market who are the Affordable Care Act’s chief beneficiaries.
- Shopping for health insurance will become tremendously more complicated…
- Individual insurance plans will tend to offer skimpier benefits…
- Out-of-pocket costs will be much higher…
- Employer-sponsored insurance might start to disappear…
- A key program promoting public health will be axed…
- Patients of Planned Parenthood clinics would be cast adrift…
- The continuous coverage rule would drive 2 million people out of the market and make the overall insurance pool sicker…
–Michael Hiltzik
Seven New Ways the GOP’s Obamacare Repeal Bill Would Wreck Your Healthcare
Image of Michael Hiltzik cropped from one at The Los Angeles Times. Licensed under Fair Use.
