CBO: Obamacare Will Leave 30 Million Uninsured

CBO: Obamacare Will Leave 30 Million Uninsured

Patrick Burke
CNSNews
August 8, 2012

A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report says that under the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, 30 million non-elderly Americans will remain without health insurance in 2022.

One of the main arguments the Obama administration made for passing the Affordable Care Act was that it would provide coverage for the uninsured.

Currently, accoriding to CBO, there are 53 million uninsured persons in the United States, including uninsured illegal aliens. The CBO estimates that in 2022--8 years after the Affordable Care Act has been fully implemented--30 million people will remain uninsured.

Under Obamacare, 8 percent of legal U.S. residents will remain without health insurance in 2022, according to CBO.

The report was done to assess the fiscal impact of the Supreme Court June Obamacare decision.

“CBO and JCT [Joint Committee on Taxation] now estimate that the ACA, in comparison with prior law before the enactment of the ACA, will reduce the number of nonelderly people without health insurance coverage by 14 million in 2014 and by 29 million or 30 million in the latter part of the coming decade, leaving 30 million nonelderly residents uninsured by the end of the period,” the report said.

“Before the Supreme Court’s decision, the latter number had been 27 million,” states the report.

As a result of the Supreme Court decision, states are no longer obligated under Obamacare to expand eligibility for their Medicaid programs.

“Some states will probably forgo the expansion entirely; some are likely to expand coverage to everyone whose income is below 138 percent of the FPL [federal poverty level]; and if the flexibility is allowed, some states may choose partial expansions. Further, states may be able to make those choices in any year after 2014,” the report said.

“The updated estimates by CBO and JCT represent their assessment of the middle of the distribution of the many possible outcomes arising from the Supreme Court’s decision,” states the CBO report.

On the same day the Supreme Court issued its ruling, President Barack Obama delivered a speech in which he said 30 million Americans presently without health coverage will now have the opportunity to obtain affordable health plans.

“If you’re one of the 30 million Americans who don’t yet have health insurance, starting in 2014, this law will offer you an array of quality, affordable, private health insurance plans to choose from,” said Obama.

However, as the CBO concludes, despite all the new government regulations and bureaucracies, taxes and subsidies created by Obamacare, there will still be 30 million uninsured people in the United States a decade from now.

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