Senate Republicans late Wednesday released a bill to repeal Obamacare without a replacement. The Obamacare Repeal and Reconciliation Act (ORRA) would sunset major provisions of the health law, including repealing its coverage expansion, in 2020.
The Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act: the new Senate health care plan, explained
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that if the bill were to become law, 32 million fewer people would have health insurance by 2026 than would if Obamacare remained in effect. Insurance premiums are projected to increase by 25 percent in 2018 and double by 2026. Half of the US population would live in areas that would not have health plans available on the individual market by 2020. The federal deficit would be reduced by $473 billion over the next 10 years, according to the CBO.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) expects this would serve as a deadline for Republicans to come up with a replacement plan, which is why the bill is known as the “repeal and delay” strategy.
The ORRA does thorough work demolishing Obamacare’s insurance expansion. It eliminates funding for the Medicaid expansion, which extended the government insurance program to millions of low-income adults, as well as the tax credits to purchase health coverage on the individual market.
It would leave millions without health insurance unless Republicans were able to agree on a replacement plan at their two-year deadline.
The ORRA would keep key Obamacare regulations on the books, including the requirement that insurance plans not discriminate against people with preexisting conditions. Republicans cannot repeal these parts of Obamacare because they are using the reconciliation process to pass the bill with a 50-vote majority and avoid a filibuster. But in reconciliation, provisions that are regulatory, with no budgetary impact, are off limits.
Previous analyses of similar legislation projected that the individual market would become unworkable under the ORRA. Insurance plans would be required to accept all customers, including those who are very sick, but healthy people would likely sit on the sidelines, as they would not be penalized for remaining uninsured. The result could be a death spiral, where only sick people purchase coverage and premiums keep rising.
The Congressional Budget Office is expected to release a score of the ORRA later this evening. You can read the entire bill here, and below:
