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18 million more uninsured if Obamacare killed, not replaced

AP PHOTO In this Jan. 10, file photo, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., accompanied by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif. leaves a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Premiums and the number of uninsured would soar under a Republican bill scuttling President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul that Congress passed last year, lawmakers’ nonpartisan budget analyst estimated Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — Insurance premiums would soar for millions of Americans and 18 million more would be uninsured in just one year if Republicans scuttle much of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul without a replacement, Congress’ budget analysts said Tuesday.

Spotlighting potential perils for Republicans, the report immediately became a flashing hazard light for this year’s effort by Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers to annul Obama’s law and — in a more complicated challenge — institute their own alternative.

It also swiftly became political fodder in what is expected to be one of this year’s biggest battles in Congress.

Republicans have produced several outlines for how they’d redraft Obama’s 2010 statute, but they’ve failed to unite behind one plan. President-elect Trump and GOP congressional leaders have at times offered clashing descriptions of their shared top goal, so eventual success is hardly guaranteed.

Tuesday’s evaluation came from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, joined by Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation.

Together, they analyzed a Republican-written bill, vetoed by Obama last January, that would have erased major portions of his overhaul. Those included tax penalties for people who fail to buy insurance and for larger companies that don’t cover workers, federal subsidies to help consumers buy policies on the law’s online marketplaces and an expansion of Medicaid coverage for low-income people.

The new report said under such a measure, premiums for individual policies — excluding the coverage many workers get from employers — would swell by up to 25 percent the first year after enactment and double by 2026. The number of uninsured would reach 32 million over the decade, the analysts said.

However, Republicans say there’s a big difference between that 2016 bill and this year’s plan: Last year’s version would not have replaced Obama’s statute with a GOP alternative, while Republicans insist replacement will be an integral part of their new health care drive.

Citing that difference, Donald Stewart, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the report “assumes a situation that simply doesn’t exist and that no one in Congress advocates.” AshLee Strong, spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called the estimates “meaningless” because they ignore plans for legislation and regulatory actions by the incoming Trump administration for revamping how people could obtain coverage.

“Nonpartisan statistics don’t lie,” countered Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who said the report showed Republican plans to void Obama’s overhaul “will increase health care costs for millions of Americans and kick millions more off of their health insurance.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said it illustrated that the GOP effort “will be nothing less than a nightmare for the American people.”

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