GOP Health Plan Somehow Projects to Insure Fewer People Than Obamacare Repeal Would

The recent Congressional Budget Office assessment of the GOP’s proposed American Health Care Act (AHCA) wasn’t exactly great for Congressional Republicans. According to the CBO’s projections, 24 million Americans would eventually lose their health insurance under the Paul Ryan/Donald Trump plan.

Turns out that’s actually one million more than would lose their insurance if Republicans simply repealed the Affordable Care Act. As The New York Times’ Upshot points out, the CBO also found that a so-called “clean repeal” would cost 23 million Americans their insurance, rather than the 24 million that would lose insurance with repeal and replace.

However, there’s not exactly a clean overlap between those two numbers. As the Upshot piece also reports, the current repeal and replace plan would more greatly affect those with employer insurance, while a clean repeal would be more deleterious to those buying their own coverage. That said, projections for both plans show that Medicaid would be majorly hit.

The House vote to begin repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act is set for Thursday and select House Republicans (such as Speaker Ryan) are currently adding amendments to the bill to help get more GOP members on board with the plan.