Repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which seems to be a high priority for some members of Congress and the President-elect, would hurt Wisconsinites in far more ways than most people realize.  A new WCCF fact sheet summarizes some of the most significant effects of repealing the ACA without enacting a viable replacement plan.

Republican leaders have said they want to use a two-step process to rewrite the ACA: quickly passing a bill early in 2017 that will terminate the current law two or three years from now, and then using the interim period to develop a replacement plan. However, that timetable could be a death blow for the federal insurance Marketplace that serves more than 200,000 Wisconsinites. In addition, it’s doubtful that Congress will actually develop and agree upon a workable replacement plan before the repeal legislation takes effect.

Our fact sheet summarizes some of the key gains from the ACA that are at risk, which include the following:

• 195,000 fewer Wisconsinites were uninsured in 2015, compared to 2013, and our state’s uninsured rate fell from 9.1% to 5.7% over that two-year period.
• All insurance plans must now provide coverage for pre-existing medical conditions. It’s estimated that up to 2.5 million people in Wisconsin have a pre-existing health condition.
• Insurers can no longer place annual or lifetime spending caps on covered benefits, so all Wisconsinites with individual or employer plans now have coverage that’s there when they need it.
• The ACA has increased access to preventive and screening services like cancer screenings, flu shots, and contraception without cost sharing. This benefits an estimated 2.8 million Wisconsinites with private insurance plans, and about 1 million seniors benefit from similar ACA changes to Medicare.
• A couple of analyses show sharply lower increases in insurance premiums. For example, a report released today by Citizen Action of Wisconsin found that insurance premiums rose by an average of just 2% per year since ACA implementation, compared to 15% per year in the 13 years prior to the ACA.

Repealing the Affordable Care Act without a viable replacement plan would cause a tremendous increase in the number of uninsured Wisconsinites, as well as far less access to preventive health care services, sharply higher health care costs for families, and a surge in uncompensated care costs for hospitals.

The Urban Institute estimates that the uninsured rate would more than double by 2019 (nationally and in Wisconsin) if the ACA is repealed and a workable replacement plan is not enacted.  Their analysis did not factor in the consequences of block-granting Medicaid, which over a ten-year period could cause a 33% drop in federal funding for Medicaid. That idea will also be on the table in 2017.

Read more in WCCF’s brief fact sheet about what the end of the ACA would mean for Wisconsin, and see also this three-page Wisconsin fact sheet prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Jon Peacock