In the background of the White House’s bedlam, congressional Republicans have been quietly chipping away at the Affordable Care Act, threatening its efficacy.
Health care experts warn that the changes are tantamount to a partial repeal of President Barack Obama’s signature act, with more dire consequences than the conservative caucus’s failed 2017 effort to ditch the public health insurance system.
“The net effect of the changes they are making is a partial repeal of the ACA,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, told CNN Tuesday.
The Affordable Care Act’s marketplace insures roughly one in seven U.S. residents, according data from the Treasury Department. And it’s Donald Trump’s own supporters who are most likely to suffer the consequences of its elimination.
Paired with Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which gutted Medicaid coverage, a new rule for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services makes it significantly harder for people to enroll or renew their ACA coverage. The rule will raise out-of-pocket costs for enrollees, increase verification requirements, and ban certain groups of legal immigrants from accessing the plans, reported CNN.
Up to 1.8 million people are at risk of losing their Obamacare insurance plans, with the greatest losses occurring in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. North Carolina, which has a Democratic governor, also faces major ACA rescissions.
But it’s not clear if this attempt to carve up the ACA will actually result in the same midterm damages that Republicans suffered the last time they attempted to eliminate the popular program, in no small part because the changes are designed to be incremental.
“Many of the changes are so technical, it may be hard for the public to grasp what’s happening,” Levitt said. “Many of the changes will take years to take effect.”
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