Senate Republicans’ “skinny” Obamacare repeal bill would leave 16 million people without insurance and cut $178 billion from the deficit by 2026, according to an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.
The score means that the bill cuts enough from the deficit to be passed under reconciliation, which means Republicans will need only 51 votes to pass it instead of the 60 needed to stop a filibuster. A final vote is expected early Friday morning.
The CBO found that repealing the individual mandate and temporarily repealing the employer mandate would lead to 43 million people without insurance in 2026, as compared with 28 million uninsured under current law.
There would be a steep dropoff in 2018, with 26 million people without insurance under Obamacare as compared with 42 million under the skinny repeal bill.
It also would raise premiums on the individual market, which is for people who don’t get insurance by work and includes Obamacare’s exchanges, by roughly 20 percent from all years between 2018 and 2026.
The bill is aimed as a vehicle to start talks with the House on a full Obamacare repeal.
But to do that, the bill has to save as much as the House does to meet rules under reconciliation. The House bill reduced the deficit by $133 billion, and the Senate skinny repeal bill exceeds that target.
