22 Million Americans Would Lose Health Insurance Under GOP Bill

The Congressional Budget Office report on the Republican Health Care bill estimates that 22 million Americans would lose their health insurance if the bill were approved.

The Colorado Health Institute has done its own analysis of the GOP bill and Joe Hanel of the CHI says their findings are very much in sync with those of the CBO.

“The biggest issue in this bill, just like the biggest issue in the Affordable Care Act, is Medicaid. That’s a program that covers about 1 in 4 Coloradans now. It focuses mostly on low-income people. There are a lot of kids in there, also some older people who are in nursing homes who have spent down their savings, disabled people, and then some able-bodied adults that the Affordable Care Act expanded care to. This bill would first of all repeal that expansion for able-bodied adults and then it would also cap spending for those other groups, and that would have the effect of in real terms reducing money for Medicaid in Colorado for the next decade and more.”

The Colorado Health Institute projects that there will be approximately $15 billion less federal funding for the state of Colorado, over the first decade that this bill took effect. In addition, 630,000 people in Colorado would lose their insurance through Medicaid, most of whom would not be able to afford health insurance on the private market. Hanel says that there is no way for the state to make up that budget shortfall.

“The state legislature would just not be able to find $15 billion, it’s just not a doable thing for them.”

The CHI analysis of the ACHA also looks at: