About 18 million people would lose or drop their health insurance in the first year after the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is repealed, the Congressional Budget Office reported Tuesday.
The nonpartisan federal agency also found that health insurance premiums would spike another 20 to 25 percent, according to the new report. Within 10 years, 32 million more people would be without health insurance, the CBO projects. Without a replacement, health care costs overall would continue to rise every year, as would the number of people going without health insurance.
Premiums would continue to go up, as well. The report’s projections are based on the repeal law passed in the House of Representatives last year. That bill would use the same process that Congress is working on now to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act, a budget-based process called reconciliation. With no mandate, many insurance companies would just stop offering policies to individuals, the CBO projects.
“As a consequence, roughly 10 percent of the population would be living in an area that had no insurer participating in the non-group market,” the CBO said. And the rest would raise premiums. “Premiums in the non-group market would be roughly 20 percent to 25 percent higher than under current law,” the CBO reported.
