And . . . the . . . CBO . . . Scooooores!

Here are the highlights we took (quickly) from this afternoon’s  Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate for the American Health Care Act.

The AHCA “would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the 2017-2026 period.”

In 2018, “14 million more people would be uninsured under the [AHCA] than under current law. Most of that increase would stem from repealing the penalties associated with the individual mandate.”  Mostly due to reduced Medicaid rolls, that number would rise to 21 million by 2020 and then to 24 million by 2025.

“[T]he [individual health insurance] market would probably be stable in most areas under either current law or the [new] legislation.”

“Even though the new tax credits would be structured differently from the current subsidies and would generally be less generous for those receiving subsidies under current law, the other changes would, in the agencies’ view, lower average premiums enough to attract a sufficient number of relatively healthy people to stabilize the market.”

“The [AHCA] would tend to increase average premiums in the [individual health insurance] market prior to 2020 and lower average premiums thereafter, relative to projections under current law.”

“Under the [AHCA], insurers would be allowed to generally charge five times more for older enrollees than younger ones rather than three times more as under current law, substantially reducing premiums for young adults and substantially raising premiums for older people.”

“With less federal reimbursement for Medicaid, states would need to decide whether to commit more of their own resources to finance the program at current-law levels or whether to reduce spending by cutting payments to health care providers and health plans, eliminating optional services, restricting eligibility for enrollment, or (to the extent feasible) arriving at more efficient methods for delivering services.”

“Beginning in 2020, the [AHCA] would repeal [ACA actuarial value] requirements, potentially allowing plans to have an actuarial value below 60 percent. However, plans would still be required to cover 10 categories of health benefits that are defined as “essential” under current law, and the total annual out-of-pocket costs for an enrollee would remain capped. [C]omplying with those two requirements would significantly limit the ability of insurers to design plans with an actuarial value much below 60 percent.”

CBO expects that, “businesses that decided not to offer insurance coverage under the [AHCA] would have, on average, younger and higher-income workforces than businesses that choose not to offer insurance under current law.”

“The [AHCA] would eliminate [the ACA’s DSH] cuts for states that have not expanded Medicaid under the ACA starting in 2018 and for the remaining states starting in 2020, boosting outlays by $31 billion over the next 10 years.”

“The [AHCA] would provide $2 billion in funding in each year from 2018 to 2021 to states that did not expand Medicaid eligibility under the ACA. Those states could use the funding, within limits, to supplement payments to providers that treat Medicaid enrollees.”

“The [AHCA] would make a number of additional changes to the Medicaid program, including these:

• Requiring states to treat lottery winnings and certain other income as income for purposes of determining eligibility;
• Decreasing the period when Medicaid benefits may be covered retroactively from up to three months before a recipient’s application to the first of the month in which a recipient makes an application;
• Eliminating federal payments to states for Medicaid services provided to applicants who did not provide satisfactory evidence of citizenship or nationality during a reasonable opportunity period; and
• Eliminating states’ option to increase the amount of allowable home equity from $500,000 to $750,000 for individuals applying for Medicaid coverage of long-term services and supports.”