Obamacare repeal would spell loss of health cover for 32 million Americans

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDJul 19 2017

If the Republics go ahead with the plan to repeal Obamacare, around 32 million Americans would lose their health cover according to a prediction from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) yesterday. CBO is a non-partisan office that works to analyse pending bills and legislations.

The CBO analysed and predicted that the cost of medical insurance would rise by 25% in the coming year and double by 2026. Repeal bill, it said would also reduce the federal deficit by $473bn (£363bn). The Senate has on two occasions failed to pass the healthcare bill and plans to sit together next week to work on the repeal of the 2010 healthcare bill brought by President Barack Obama with a two year delay.

Net Effects of the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act of 2017 on the Budget Deficit - Image Credit: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52939

President Donald Trump postponed the party’s August recess until they come to a consensus to repeal Obamacare and replace it with their own Republican plans. He has called on the 49 Republican Senators for immediate action on this. He added that the Republicans have promised to repeal Obamacare for the past seven years and now is the time. “We can repeal, but we should repeal and replace, and we shouldn’t leave town until this is complete,” he said.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell thus has scheduled a vote early next week to repeal Obamacare. At least three of the Senators however have defected already this week though. Moderate Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia are opposed to the repeal. Democrats are together in opposing this repeal and Republicans could lose only those two votes in their 52-48 majority at the 100 strong Senate in order to pass the bill.

“I’m glad @POTUS agrees that we cannot move to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan that addresses the needs of West Virginians,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito who is opposing the outright repeal wrote on Twitter. Senator Lamar Alexander chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee also said that he doubted if there would be 40 votes in favour of only repeal and no replacement.

Loss of the Affordable Care Act that was popularly called Obamacare would mean a rise of 17 million in 2018 uninsured according to the CBO. Mr. Trump’s campaign pledge was to repeal Obamacare and Republicans have looked upon Obamacare as an expensive interference into the healthcare system. The Republican plans for healthcare also includes reductions in Medicaid that paid for healthcare for the disabled and the poor. Obamacare had a mandate that all individual citizens need to be under the umbrella of medical insurance and if they fail to do so, they would require to pay a tax penalty. Repeal of the policy could also mean that this clause would be removed. Persons who have failed to renew their policy for over two months would now be banned for six months before they can attempt for a fresh insurance cover. So come next week a vote that would finally take place would determine the outcomes of millions of covered Americans.