A new study finds that the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) of 2017 — the Senate bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — could cause an estimated 1.45 million jobs to disappear by 2026 and trigger an economic downturn in all but one state.
The study, released by George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health and The Commonwealth Fund, projected overall job losses from the BCRA are about 50 percent greater than the nearly 1 million estimated losses under the House-passed American Health Care Act. Researchers said negative economic effects of the bill would be seen both in states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA and those that did not. According to the study, states that will see the worst job losses include:
- New York, with 132,000 jobs lost;
- California, with 117,000 jobs lost;
- Pennsylvania, with 110,000 jobs lost;
- Ohio, with 99,000 jobs lost;
- Michigan, with 86,000 jobs lost;
- Florida, with 78,000 jobs lost;
- Illinois, with 71,000 jobs lost;
- New Jersey, with 60,000 jobs lost;
- Massachusetts, with 54,000 jobs lost; and
- Indiana, with 39,000 jobs lost.
The study estimates that the BCRA could result in gross state products falling by $162 billion by 2026, while state business output could fall by $265 billion.
Researchers said that while economic slowdown would not happen right away in all states, job losses in the health care sector would be immediate — 30,000 health care jobs would be lost in 2018 if the bill is passed, rising to 919,000 health care job losses by 2026.
Contact Director of Policy Erin O’Malley at eomalley@essentialhospitals.org or 202.585.0127 with questions.