The Public Interest Research Group in Michigan (PIRGIM) has released a study that shows repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would be very costly to Michigan residents.
Consumers and small businesses in Michigan will face significantly higher insurance premiums and could see costly coverage denials and price discrimination if efforts to repeal the federal health care law prevail in Congress or in the courts, according to The Cost of Repeal: Examining the Impact on Michigan of Repealing the New Federal Health Care Law, a new report released today by PIRGIM.According to the report, in the short term, repeal would strip tax credits from 126,300 Michigan small businesses. And over the longer term, the cost of offering employer-based health insurance could jump by more than $3000 a year over current law.
Ann Arbor small business owner Mark Hodesh, who runs Downtown Home and Garden, says that a repeal of the tax credits would hurt his business—and the economy. “Knowing that we were going to get a tax credit for the portion of health care that we pay gave me the confidence to hire a new employee,” he said. “This person had been drawing unemployment, and now pays taxes. Our tax credit is contributing back to the economy.”
“In today’s economy, the higher costs that would result from repeal are the last thing that Michigan consumers and businesses need,” said Meghan Hess, PIRGIM Program Associate.
The new PIRGIM report draws on data from independent sources, including the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, other government agencies, business groups and health analysts, and finds the following:
- Repealing the new state health insurance exchange would drive premiums on the individual market up to 20% higher for the same coverage by 2016.
- Without the new law’s insurance reforms, the 24.7% of Michigan residents who have pre-existing conditions, ranging from asthma to cancer, will continue to face coverage denials and price discrimination when purchasing their own insurance.
- If the insurance reforms are repealed, Michigan women will continue to pay higher prices than men for health coverage.
- Rolling back last year’s law would drive up employer health costs, leading to 6135 fewer jobs created per year in Michigan by the end of the decade.
- Outright repeal would pull $14.3 billion in federal Medicaid dollars out of the state’s economy and terminate establishment or expansion of 184 community health centers across Michigan.
But, then, all people paying attention pretty much knew all of that, didn’t we?
I’m just sayin’…
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