A Look Into The Economic And Human Cost Of A Partial Obamacare Repeal

Everyone is talking about the potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), as Republicans promised to eliminate the program in an attempt to cut down government spending. However, the costs of a repeal — both economic and human — could amply surpass the savings, experts have argued.

According to a report from The Commonwealth Fund, the repeal of two certain central provisions of the Affordable Care Act would result in $140 billion in savings for the government, but would also imply the loss of up to 3 million jobs – 2 million outside the health care sector. Moreover, the analysts have estimated, gross state product would tumble by $1.5 trillion between 2019 (when the repeal is expected to kick in) and 2023, under such circumstances.

Job Loss

“Repealing key parts of the ACA could trigger massive job losses and a slump in consumer and business spending that would affect all sectors of state economies,” explicated public health and policy expert Leighton Ku, lead author of the report.

The most affected states would be California (334,000 jobs lost), Florida (181,000), Texas (175,000), Pennsylvania (125,000), New York (125,000) and Ohio (125,000), the analysts have estimated.

Impact On The Currently Insured

Beyond jobs, a repeal of the ACA would have a very large impact on people’s health, especially on those with expensive-to-treat chronic conditions. As per the Urban Institute think tank, a repeal would quickly leave 30 million people (most of them working-class) uninsured. This means that, by 2019, 59 million Americans could be uninsured, surpassing pre-Obamacare levels.

Moreover, 57 million senior citizens and disabled citizens would lose cost-sharing privileges and have their premiums and deductibles boosted.

Want to find out what companies poised to lose the most from a repeal? Follow this link.

Image Credit: Derived from Obama (Obamacare) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons