CBO: Supreme Court ruling means 3 million fewer with health care

By David Grant, Staff writer / July 24, 2012

AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari

Washington

Congress’s non-partisan budget umpire had some relatively bad news for both Republicans and Democrats in its updated scoring of the president’s health-care reform legislation.

The new estimates for the law’s cost and scope were prompted by last month's Supreme Court’s ruling that states did not have to accept the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) requirement to expand Medicaid coverage. Several states run by Republican governors who are opponents of the law have said they will not expand Medicaid to include those earning less than 138 percent of the federal poverty limit, as posited in the law.

Republicans hell-bent on repealing President Obama’s signature health-care legislation would have to find some $11 billion per year over the next decade (for a total of $109 billion) to offset the law’s repeal and avoid increasing the nation’s debt, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio on Tuesday.

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CBO: Supreme Court ruling means 3 million fewer with health care

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