![CBO Projects Obamacare Repeal Will Cut Deficit By $119 Billion, Leave 23 Million Less With Insurance]()
The CBO has finally scored the House-passed healthcare bill, H.R.1628 (which as a reminder remains DOA in the Senate), and finds modest improvement relative to its last scoring of the proposed Healthcare bill as of March 23. Here are the apples to apples comparisons with the last proposed version of the bill:
· Under the House-passed Bill, *the US budget deficit would be reduced by $119 billion between 2017 and 2026*. This is $31 billion less than the proposed March bill, which would have *lowered the deficit by $150 billion*.
· Offsetting the smaller benefit on the deficit, the CBO found that the *number of Americans expected to lose their health coverage would rise to 23 million in 2026*, which is *1 million fewer than the 24 million *forecast in March, or roughly $31 billion in spending over 10 years to provide 1 million Americans with insurance over the same time period.
· The CBO concludes that in 2026, *an estimated 51 million people under age 65 would be uninsured*, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law. Under the last CBO estimate, the number of Americans wihtout insurance in 2026 was 52 million of Americans under 65, so an improvement of 1 million as expected.
Below is the "bridge" of the budget deficit reduction from the CBO:
The key details from the official score:
· CBO and JCT estimate that, over the 2017-2026 period, enacting H.R. 1628 would reduce direct spending by $1,111 billion and reduce revenues by $992 billion, *for a net reduction of $119 billion in the deficit over that period *(see Table 1, at the end of this document). The provisions dealing with health insurance coverage would reduce the deficit, on net, by $783 billion; the noncoverage provisions would increase the deficit by $664 billion, mostly by reducing revenues.
· CBO and JCT estimate that, in 2018, *14 million more people would be uninsured under H.R. 1628 than under current law*. The increase in the number of uninsured people relative to the number projected *under current law would reach 19 million in 2020 and 23 million in 2026*.
· In 2026, an estimated *51 million people under age 65 would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law. *Under the legislation, a few million of those people would use tax credits to purchase policies that would not cover major medical risks.
Furthermore, since much of the impact of the GOP bill would be at the state level and whether states request various waivers, the CBO added the following discussion on the impact of premiums on state-specific impacts:
· *About half the population resides in states that would not request waivers regarding the EHBs or community rating, CBO and JCT project. *In those states, *average premiums in the nongroup market would be about 4 percent lower in 2026 than under current law, *mostly because a younger and healthier population would be purchasing the insurance. The changes in premiums would vary for people of different ages. A change in the rules governing how much more insurers can charge older people than younger people, effective in 2019, would directly alter the premiums faced by different age groups, substantially reducing premiums for young adults and raising premiums for older people.
· *About one-third of the population resides in states that would make moderate changes to market regulations. *In those states, CBO and JCT expect that, overall, *average premiums in the nongroup market would be roughly 20 percent lower in 2026 than under current law, *primarily because, on average, insurance policies would provide fewer benefits. Although the changes to regulations affecting community rating would be limited, the extent of the changes in the EHBs would vary widely; the estimated reductions in average premiums range from 10 percent to 30 percent in different areas of the country. The reductions for younger people would be substantially larger and those for older people substantially smaller.
· *Finally, about one-sixth of the population resides in states that would obtain waivers involving both the EHBs and community rating and that would allow premiums to be set on the basis of an individual’s health status in a substantial portion of the nongroup market, CBO and JCT anticipate. *As in other states, average premiums would be lower than under current law because a younger and healthier population would be purchasing the insurance and because large changes to the EHB requirements would cause plans to a cover a smaller percentage of expected health care costs. In addition, premiums would vary significantly according to health status and the types of benefits provided, and less healthy people would face extremely high premiums, despite the additional funding that would be available under H.R. 1628 to help reduce premiums. *Over time, it would become more difficult for less healthy people (including people with preexisting medical conditions) in those states to purchase insurance because their premiums would continue to increase rapidly*. As a result of the narrower scope of covered benefits and the difficulty less healthy people would face purchasing insurance, average premiums for people who did purchase insurance would generally be lower than in other states—but the variation around that average would be very large. CBO and JCT do not have an estimate of how much lower those premiums would be.
· Although premiums would decline, on average, in states that chose to narrow the scope of EHBs, some people enrolled in nongroup insurance would experience substantial increases in what they would spend on health care. *People living in states modifying the EHBs who used services or benefits no longer included in the EHBs would experience substantial increases in out-of-pocket spending on health care or would choose to forgo the services*. Services or benefits likely to be excluded from the EHBs in some states include maternity care, mental health and substance abuse benefits, rehabilitative and habilitative services, and pediatric dental benefits. In particular, out-of-pocket spending on maternity care and mental health and substance abuse services could increase by thousands of dollars in a given year for the nongroup enrollees who would use those services. Moreover, the ACA’s ban on annual and lifetime limits on covered benefits would no longer apply to health benefits not defined as essential in a state. As a result, for some benefits that might be removed from a state’s definition of EHBs but that might not be excluded from insurance coverage altogether, some enrollees could see large increases in out-of-pocket spending because annual or lifetime limits would be allowed. That could happen, for example, to some people who use expensive prescription drugs. Out-of-pocket payments for people who have relatively high health care spending would increase most in the states that obtained waivers from the requirements for both the EHBs and community rating.
Full CBO document below (link)
Reported by Zero Hedge 3 hours ago.
The CBO has finally scored the House-passed healthcare bill, H.R.1628 (which as a reminder remains DOA in the Senate), and finds modest improvement relative to its last scoring of the proposed Healthcare bill as of March 23. Here are the apples to apples comparisons with the last proposed version of the bill:
As the mainstream media and the original Affordable Care Act (ACA) architects attempt to saddle the Trump administration with the blame for Obamacare's epic implosion, we thought the following two charts, which highlight the staggering increases in premiums from 2013 through 2017, were a timely reminder that Obamacare's 'implosion' occurred long before people even thought Trump had a shot at the White House. 
Watch VideoThe latest version of the GOP's American Health Care Act has been reviewed by the Congressional Budget Office.
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