Here & Now

CBO Offers Projections On GOP American Health Care Act

Frederica Freyberg:

New information this week on the American Health Care Act. The house budget committee voted 19-17 to advance the bill. That vote comes on the heels of the Congressional Budget Office reporting that 14 million people would lose insurance under the GOP plan in the first year. And in ten years that number would rise to 24 million. Last week, when we interviewed expert Donna Friedsam and asked her for her winners and losers in the ACA replacement plan, she said she’d need to wait for the CBO scoring to be definitive. Well, she got back to us and here is her list of winners and losers.

In the winners column, people who are younger, healthier, higher income and those who live in areas with lower insurance premiums. Generally our expert says, urban areas. Also winners? Higher-income people who will see $16 billion in tax cuts. The losers in the plan include lower-income and older people between ages 50 and 64, people with significant health conditions and those in areas with higher insurance premiums, generally rural areas. In the mixed column, expert Donna Friedsam says the Congressional Budget Office projects insurance premiums will decline after 2020, but the costs she says appear to decline because of lower benefit policies that have higher deductibles and narrower networks. Also mixed? CBO scoring projects the proposed plan would cut the federal deficit by $337 billion over the next decade. This occurs due to a 25% reduction in federal Medicaid spending and reductions in tax credits for lower and middle income people to buy insurance.

Despite the large number of people projected to lose health insurance under the new GOP plan, House Speaker Paul Ryan defended the CBO report, which also shows a reduction in the deficit by $337 billion in ten years. Ryan says, quote, this report confirms that the American Health Care Act will lower premiums and improve access to quality, affordable care. CBO also finds that legislation will provide massive tax relief, dramatically reduce the deficit and make the most fundamental entitlement reform in more than a generation.