Smart guy and president of The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity Avik Roy browbeat some poor congressional staffer until he coughed up the CBO’s dirty little secret.
Most of those MILLIONS of people that would lose health coverage after ANY repeal of Obamacare are due to people choosing against having it, not being “kicked off.”
From Roy in Forbes:
Previously undisclosed estimate: Three-fourths of CBO coverage difference is the individual mandate
This week, I obtained from a congressional staffer the CBO’s estimates of the coverage impact of repealing the individual mandate, separate from the Senate bill’s other provisions. The estimate was built out of earlier work CBO did to model how repealing the mandate would affect the federal deficit. CBO projected then that repealing the mandate alone would lead to 15 million fewer insured U.S. residents in 2018, and 16 million fewer by 2026, though they did not publish those estimates.
16 million represents nearly three-fourths of the CBO’s estimate of the coverage difference between the GOP bills and Obamacare in 2026. That’s despite the fact that, as I noted in March, even Jonathan Gruber—one of Obamacare’s most famous advocates—believes Obamacare’s individual mandate is having little effect. In a 2016 article for the New England Journal of Medicine, Gruber and two co-authors wrote, “When we assessed the mandate’s detailed provisions, which include income-based penalties for lacking coverage and various specific exemptions from those penalties, we did not find that overall coverage rates responded to these aspects of the law.” (Emphasis added.)
That’s YUGE deal. If most of the people who would lose coverage under any repeal of Obamacare would willingly do it, then that means they’re being forced to do so now. Another word for that is “mandated.”
Roy concludes that moderates need to face up to this fact:
Some Republicans advocate starting over and writing an entirely new Obamacare replacement that can get a better CBO score. But any replacement that repeals the individual mandate will be scored by the CBO as covering at least 16 million fewer people—and probably worse.
GOP moderates, in particular, have been intimidated by the CBO coverage scores, expressing reluctance to vote for a plan that “takes coverage away” from so many. But if the only reason you’ve stopped buying insurance is because the government is no longer fining you for doing so, nobody has “taken away” your coverage.
It’s time for those moderates to choose. Do you support Obamacare’s individual mandate? If you do, then no GOP replacement will ever satisfy you. If you oppose the individual mandate, and would vote for its repeal, then you should ignore at least three-fourths of the CBO’s coverage score. The CBO has left us with no middle ground.
Thank goodness for Avik Roy’s brass knuckle tactics, or we’d never have found out about this. And we hope that congressional staffer gets well soon.*
*I’m joking about all of that. We don’t care if he gets well soon.
Here’s a great debate with Avik Roy and Obamacare architect, Ezekiel Emanuel: