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By Miriam Raftery
July 27, 2017 (San Diego) – Over 3.8 million Californians are at risk of losing their healthcare coverage, if Congress repeals the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). That’s more than any other state, according to a New York Times report titled “How Many People Across America Are at Risk of Losing Their Health Insurance?”
Between 2010 and 2015, over 19 million people who were previously uninsured gained insurance primarily through the Affordable Care Act. That includes 3,849,000 people in California—by far the largest total of any U.S. state.
Others with large populations at risk of having their healthcare coverage taken away include Texas (over 1.7 million), Florida (1.5 million) and New York (968,000).
Many of these gained coverage through Medicaid expansion, subsidies to help low income Americans afford policies, and requirements that insurance companies cover those with pre-existing conditions – all things that the Republican House and Senate have been considering repealing. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that repealing Obamacare with no replacement would kick 32 million people off of healthcare policies; the repeal-and-replace plans thus far considered would cause at least 20 million Americans to lose coverage, and in some cases even more.
During his campaign, President Donald Trump promised to deliver better healthcare coverage at lower rates, but he has thus far failed to deliver anything close to that promise. He has pledged to “let Obamacare fail” if Congress does not approve one of the plans that the CBO estimated would take all coverage away from many Americans.
View full New York Times article, including a map showing how many have Affordable Care Act policies in all 50 states: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/27/us/people-who-gained-insurance-by-state.html
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