Study: Trump healthcare plan would end coverage for 21M

A new analysis reports that Donald Trump’s healthcare plan would result in about 21 million people losing health insurance and cost about $270 billion over 10 years. 

{mosads} The analysis, from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), looks at the healthcare plan that Trump released earlier this month, which includes many popular Republican concepts.  

Trump’s plan calls for fully repealing ObamaCare, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects would lead to 22 million people losing health insurance. The CRFB, using previous CBO estimates of the component parts, finds that Trump’s replacement would only add coverage for about 1 million people. 

“Mr. Trump’s plan to repeal and replace Obamacare — based on the details available — would both add to the deficit and significantly reduce coverage,” the CRFB analysis finds. 

Trump’s plan calls for the common Republican ideas of creating a tax deduction for individuals’ insurance premiums and allowing insurance to be sold across state lines. 

The CRFB, using CBO estimates, finds that these policies would add coverage for 1.1 million people, not doing much to make up for the 22 million people losing coverage from the repeal of ObamaCare. 

In addition to coverage implications, there is also a cost to Trump’s plan, much of it coming simply from repealing ObamaCare. Repealing ObamaCare costs money, according to the CBO, because the loss of new taxes and Medicare cuts more than outweighs the savings from undoing spending on the coverage expansion. 

The CRFB, again using previous CBO estimates, finds that repealing ObamaCare would cost $200 billion over 10 years. (That includes economic effects; the cost is even higher without factoring in effects on the economy.)  

Trump’s replacement then adds $70 billion in additional costs. Those costs come from the $100 billion to create the tax deduction for insurance premiums, $30 billion of which is offset by allowing insurance to be sold across state lines and allowing the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from abroad. 

The end result, including the costs of repealing ObamaCare and Trump’s replacement, is $270 billion in costs over 10 years, the study finds. 

Trump’s plan also does not include provisions to allow people with preexisting health conditions to obtain coverage, something that Trump says he supports but that would be eliminated with the repeal of ObamaCare. 

In addition, Trump’s plan calls for converting Medicaid into block grants to the states. However, Trump does not provide any details on how big these block grants would be, so the CRFB was unable to estimate the effects on coverage or spending from this proposal.