Minerva Studio/iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that repealing the Affordable Care Act without an immediate plan for replacement would likely cause 17 million people to lose health care in the near term.
The CBO scored a “repeal-only” or “repeal and delay” bill suggested by some GOP senators and found that such legislation would decrease the national deficit by $473 billion in the next ten years. However, the agency says, it would cause the number of uninsured Americans to increase by 17 million in 2018. That number would further climb to 27 million in 2020 and 32 million in 2026.
The CBO also says repeal-only would cause premiums to increase by about 25 percent in 2018 and nearly double by 2026.
Additionally, half of the nation’s population would live in areas with no insurer participating in the nongroup market by 2020, with that number continuing to increase beyond that point.
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