Freedom to be Sick

   Health care insurance premiums would jump by 50 percent in the first year and double in ten years if key portions of the Affordable Care Act are repealed, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
   In addition, the number of people without health insurance would rise by 18 million in the first year after repeal, the CBO said.
   Similar efforts at the state level, where there was no mandate to buy and no subsidy to help, destabilized the insurance market, the CBO noted.
   The so-called Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act would end the requirement that people get a health insurance policy, as well as eliminate subsidies for those who need help in paying health care premiums, plus stop expanding Medicaid eligibility.
   All these factors, the CBO said, would put "upward pressure on premiums and downward pressure on enrollment." That means insurance companies will drop out and fewer people will try to enroll.
   In one year after the planned reform takes effect, about half the nation's population will live in areas without access to health insurance as companies leave the market, the CBO estimated. And in ten years, that share will jump to 75 percent of the nation's population.
   That contraction of the market would especially harm those without employer-based health insurance or public health insurance.