Washington, DC — Today, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a new report detailing how Republican sabotage will strip Americans of health care and Protect Our Care executive director Brad Woodhouse issued the following statement in response:
“The latest CBO report on health insurance coverage shows that Republicans’ relentless sabotage agenda continues to threaten Americans’ lives and financial security. President Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are more than willing to see two million more of their fellow citizens go without health insurance next year thanks to their harmful sabotage agenda. While Republicans continue to promote useless junk plans, attach onerous paperwork requirements on state Medicaid programs, and seek to overturn the our health care in court, millions of Americans – and our entire health care system – will suffer from their reckless policies.”
BACKGROUND
The Congressional Budget Office Cited The Administration’s Embrace Of Junk Plans As One Reason That Two Million More People Are Projected To Be Uninsured In 2020 Than Previously Estimated. “In 2019, 30 million people under age 65, or 11 percent of that population, are projected to be uninsured, an increase from 29 million in 2018 and 28 million in 2017 (see Figure 1-4). Increases in health insurance premiums and the elimination of the individual mandate penalty have contributed to that rise. An additional factor in the increase is people’s becoming aware of and enrolling in coverage (such as short-term, limited-duration plans that do not provide comprehensive major medical coverage) from sources that do not meet CBO and JCT’s definition health of health insurance.” [Congressional Budget Office, May 2019]
The Same Provision Of The GOP Tax Law That The Trump Administration Is Using To Argue That The Affordable Care Act Be Overturned In Federal Court Is Causing 7 Million More People To Be Uninsured In 2021 Than Would Have Been Otherwise. “In projections by the Congressional Budget Office and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the repeal of the penalty for not having health insurance starting in 2019 results in less insurance coverage. In total, the effects of that repeal that are described here are similar to those that CBO and JCT incorporated in the baseline a year ago. By 2021, in the current baseline, 7 million more people are uninsured than would have been if the individual mandate penalty had not been repealed; subsequently, that number remains roughly constant to the end of the projection period in 2029.” [Congressional Budget Office, May 2019]
Even More People Would Be Uninsured Because Of Republican Sabotage If Not For State Efforts To Expand Medicaid. “The effect of the repeal is partially offset by increases in coverage for other reasons. Most important, in the agencies’ projections, additional states expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, and more people enroll in certain types of health insurance—specifically, those that are exempt from regulations governing the nongroup market but that nonetheless provide major medical coverage.” [Congressional Budget Office, May 2019]