Congress is taking the first steps to strip healthcare away from 30 million people and make healthcare worse for all of us by dismantling the Affordable Care Act.
The Congressional Budget Office issued a report recently that found that as a result of repealing the ACA, by 2026 there will be 32 million more uninsured people and the health insurance premiums would be doubled. Other findings:
* The uninsured population will increase by 18 million in the first year following the enactment of the reconciliation bill. This increase is primarily caused by the immediate repeal of the ACA’s individual mandate. Then once the Medicaid expansion and marketplace subsidies are eliminated roughly two years after the enactment, the number of uninsured will increase by 27 million. By 2026, 59 million people under age 65 would be uninsured, compared with 28 million if the ACA is not repealed. In other words, there will roughly 32 million more uninsured people as a result.
* In the first year following enactment, premiums for individual policies purchased through the marketplaces or directly from insurers would increase by 20 to 25 percent compared to what was projected under the ACA. The increase would reach about 50 percent in the year following the elimination of the Medicaid expansion and the marketplace subsidies. By 2026, premiums would double.
Congress needs to show us their plan to keep Americans covered before they vote to take away the healthcare we count on. We need care, not chaos.
Their healthcare repeal bill will:
● Take healthcare away from 30 million Americans, 82% of whom are in working families.
● Cause premiums to skyrocket with no end in sight for millions of Americans.
● Leave 4 million more children uninsured, doubling the number of uninsured children in our country.
● Take healthcare away from millions of Americans who work hard to make our country run — in nursing homes, fast food restaurants and grocery stores — by ending the expansion of Medicaid coverage in 32 states plus the District of Columbia.
● Let businesses off the hook for providing healthcare for their employees, by eliminating the employer mandate for any company with more than 50 employees, including America’s largest companies.
● Raise taxes on millions of working families and at the same time, give insurance companies and huge corporations hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks.
● Cut funding for women who rely on essential, preventive healthcare and birth control from Planned Parenthood.
Congress needs to work together to fix what’s broken in the Affordable Care Act to make it work better for everyone, not simply tear the whole thing down. Repealing the healthcare millions of Americans count on without any replacement would throw our healthcare system into chaos and harm seniors, children and working families.
We know that repealing the Affordable Care Act is just the first step. Some Republican leaders in Congress plan to cut Medicaid and turn Medicare into a voucher system. This would plunge our entire healthcare system and American households into a crisis at a time when we can least afford it.