The current situation presents an opportunity to replace the Affordable Care Act with a more sustainable bipartisan law. But repeal must wait until a consensus is built around a replacement plan. Not doing so – starting with repeal and delay – threatens to destabilize the individual market and harm not only those who receive subsidies from the ACA, but also everyone who now purchases insurance in the individual market.
Estimates show that premiums would jump at least 20 percent and cause 4.3 million to lose health insurance as soon as next year, and that’s nothing compared to the damage that would be inflicted if a replacement plan subsequently failed to emerge. The current version of repeal through reconciliation, leaving in place the ACA’s insurance market reforms, would nearly destroy the individual market if its provisions took effect, causing 30 million people in total to lose health insurance, leaving more uninsured than before the ACA.
Fixing the ACA is important, but replacing it with a durable plan to make health coverage broadly affordable will take time and constructive bipartisan collaboration.
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