The Congressional Budget Office finally released its analysis of the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act yesterday–and not surprisingly, the stats aren’t too good for 99% of people who live in the U.S.
The analysis shows that repealing the ACA would leave 17 million people without insurance. By 2018. Which, you know, is only next year.
That’s not the worst of it, though. By 2020, that number would soar, right up to 27 million.
27 million.
Then, by 2026, 32 million Americans would be left out in the dust. That’s an insane amount of people without healthcare–and would result in a lot of unnecessary, preventable death.
Besides that, premiums would increase “by roughly 25 percent—relative to projections under current law—in 2018. The increase would reach about 50 percent in 2020, and premiums would about double by 2026,” according to the CBO.
The New York Times wrote:
“Obamacare’s insurance markets depend on the voluntary participation of private insurance companies, and most of them see those markets as difficult long-term investments. Many of them might choose to retreat to safer lines of business in the uncertain “zombie” period between the passage of such a repeal bill and its ultimate enactment.”
Increased premiums as a result of the Cruz amendment would drive up the federal cost for premium subsidies. That won’t be in CBO’s numbers.
— Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) July 20, 2017
Meanwhile, there’s another GOP bill on the table that would block faculty at University of Wisconsin-Madison from even teaching OB-GYN residents how to perform abortions. Which, is like, you know, a medical procedure doctors should know.
The bill claims that teaching abortion at a public university technically means that state dollars are being used to pay for abortion. The Journal-Sentinel wrote:
“The UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Aurora Health Care and the Medical College of Wisconsin all train OB-GYN residents in how to perform abortions.Wisconsin law blocks spending public dollars on elective abortions, so the UW-Madison medical school has an agreement with Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin in which that organization pays UW physicians to perform abortions and train OB-GYN residents in how to perform abortions at its Madison clinic.
Since the training requires participating in abortions and government dollars can’t be used to facilitate abortions, the training can’t take place at the university hospital. That would leave nowhere for UW-Madison residents to obtain it. They would have to join another residency program if they wanted to become a certified OB-GYN.”
This entire bill ignores the point that abortions save lives–and are also the choice of the woman whose body it involves (and no one else’s, unless there’s some weird inter-dimensional alien hosting the woman’s body, but this isn’t a horror film).
Doctors being untrained mean that women could die–and that women can’t control or take ownership over their bodies and lives. Jezebel went on to point out:
“The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education writes that for an OB-GYN training program to qualify, it must “provide training or access to training the provision of abortions, and this must be part of the planned curriculum.” Trainees who object to abortions can opt out, according to the guidelines.
According to data provided by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, there are no OB-GYNs practicing in 1/3 of the 72 counties in Wisconsin. In Douglas County, which has a population of 44,159, there is only one.”
