EconoFact: Bringing Facts and Data to Policy Debates

EconoFact is a non-partisan publication, online starting today, designed to bring key facts and incisive analysis to the national debate on economic and social policies. It is written by leading academic economists from across the country who belong to the EconoFact Network, and published by the Edward R. Murrow Center for a Digital World at The Fletcher School at Tufts University. The co-editors are Michael Klein and Edward Schumacher-Matos.

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CBO Estimates of Repealing the Affordable Care Act a.k.a. “Obamacare”

From the CBO yesterday:

CBO and JCT estimate that enacting [H.R. 3762, the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015, which would repeal portions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) eliminating, in two steps, the law’s mandate penalties and subsidies but leaving the ACA’s insurance market reforms in place] would affect insurance coverage and premiums primarily in these ways:


  • The number of people who are uninsured would increase by 18 million in the first new plan year following enactment of the bill. Later, after the elimination of the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid eligibility and of subsidies for insurance purchased through the ACA marketplaces, that number would increase to 27 million, and then to 32 million in 2026.
  • Premiums in the nongroup market (for individual policies purchased through the marketplaces or directly from insurers) would increase by 20 percent to 25 percent—relative to projections under current law—in the first new plan year following enactment. The increase would reach about 50 percent in the year following the elimination of the Medicaid expansion and the marketplace subsidies, and premiums would about double by 2026.

Here is one estimate of how many people additional people are dying each year because of 25 states opting out of Medicaid expansion, as implemented under the ACA. I don’t know of a calculation for what happens if legislation like H.R. 3762 is implemented.