The health care bill that House Republicans introduced this week, which President Trump has been endorsed, would cause millions of people to lose their health coverage.
According to an initial estimate by S&P Global Ratings, 10 million people could lose their coverage. Many experts believe that is a conservative estimate, and the Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its own numbers on Monday.
The Republican bill would cause many people to lose access by phasing out Medicaid expansion for the poor and providing less generous subsidies for many other people.
In addition to Democrats, many Republican governors have expressed concern about millions of people losing coverage.
Asked about the issue of people losing coverage, White House Press Secretary deflected and just claimed that, under Obamacare, people “are losing their care right now.”
This is an alternative fact or, more simply, a lie.
Obamacare has been extremely successful at providing access to health care to millions more people than had access before.
The percentage of Americans who are uninsured has dropped precipitously since 2013, when the major Obamacare provisions went into effect. Gallup reported that “[t]he uninsured rate has been dropping fairly consistently on a quarterly basis since the ACA provision requiring U.S. adults to obtain health insurance took effect in 2013.”
Estimates vary, but the decline in the uninsured translates into approximately 20 million more people getting health coverage.
The primary ways that Obamacare provided more coverage — expanding Medicare and generous subsidies — are precisely the features Trumpcare cuts or eliminates.
That is one reason why nearly every major doctors’ group, including the American Medical Association, opposes the plan.
Rather than confront this reality, however, the Trump administration has invented a new one.