Explore Analysis by Kaiser Family Foundation to Estimate How the Senate Health Bill Will Affect You
Younger, wealthier consumers will be better off, but older, lower-income Americans will likely see their premiums rise.
As of Friday afternoon, five Republican senators have announced they will oppose the Senate health care bill. Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada is the most recent to publicly dissent from the Better Care Reconciliation Act, his party’s own bill.
"This bill that’s currently in front of the United States Senate is not the answer, it’s simply not the answer. And I’m announcing today that in this form I will not support it," Heller said. Notably Heller is up for reelection in 2018, and he represents a state that opted to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
The Republican majority in the Senate is slim. At 52-48—with no Democrats in favor of the legislation—if more than two Republicans vote “nay” the BCRA will fail. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn’t yet appear to be backing down from his push to hold a vote this week, before senators depart from Washington, D.C. for the July 4 recess.
The Congressional Budget Office is set to deliver their score of the BCRA on Monday afternoon, but until then those interested in estimating the ways in which they might be impacted by this legislation can turn to an interactive map compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Experts from KFF compared county-level projections of premiums and tax credits for marketplace enrollees under existing law in 2020 with expectations for that same year under draft of the the Senate’s bill released on June 22.
The map (which you can explore here) can be filtered based on an individual’s income and age and clearly shows the ways in which health care cost outcomes will differ for younger and older consumers.
The map below clearly shows a decrease in premiums paid by a 27-year-old who makes $75,000 a year in 2020 under the BCRA, as compared with their premiums under Obamacare.
Older, lower-income Americans on the other hand won’t fare so well. For the most part, across the country, a 60-year-old making $40,000 annually will be paying more on their premium in 2020 than they would under the existing law.
Quinn Libson is a Staff Correspondent for Government Executive’s Route Fifty based in Washington, D.C.
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