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The NY Times has a good (but woefully incomplete) look today at some of the things that would change if the GOP succeeds in getting the Affordable Care Act struck down. The return of pre-existing conditions, dismantling of the marketplaces and Medicaid expansion, end of protections from caps on coverage, premium and other cost hikes for Medicare beneficiaries.
Oral arguments before the Supreme Court are the week after Election Day.
If the Supreme Court Ends Obamacare, Here’s What It Would Mean
Oral arguments before the Supreme Court are the week after Election Day.
If the Supreme Court Ends Obamacare, Here’s What It Would Mean
As many as 133 million Americans — roughly half the population under the age of 65 — have pre-existing medical conditions that could disqualify them from buying a health insurance policy or cause them to pay significantly higher premiums if the health law were overturned, according to a government analysis done in 2017.
Of the 23 million people who either buy health insurance through the marketplaces set up by the law (roughly 11 million) or receive coverage through the expansion of Medicaid (12 million), about 21 million are at serious risk of becoming uninsured if Obamacare is struck down.
If the health law were struck down, more than 12 million low-income adults who have gained Medicaid coverage through the law’s expansion of the program could lose it.
The law protects many Americans from caps that insurers and employers once used to limit how much they had to pay out in coverage each year or over a lifetime. Among them are those who get coverage through an employer — more than 150 million before the pandemic caused widespread job loss — as well as roughly 15 million enrolled in Obamacare and other plans in the individual insurance market.
If the A.C.A. is struck down, Medicare beneficiaries would have to pay more for preventive care, like a wellness visit or diabetes check, which are now free. They would also have to pay more toward their prescription drugs. About five million people faced the so-called Medicare doughnut hole, or coverage gap, in 2016, which the A.C.A. sought to eliminate. If the law were overturned, that coverage gap would widen again.
The law also made other changes, like cutting the amount the federal government paid hospitals and other providers as well as private Medicare Advantage plans. Undoing the cuts could increase the program’s overall costs by hundreds of billions of dollars, according to Ms. Neuman. Premiums under the program could go up as a result.
The Urban Institute estimated that nationwide, without the A.C.A., the cost of care for people who cannot pay for it could increase as much as $50.2 billion.