Groups that warned about House health-care plan say Senate version could be worse

July 08--The groups that warned last month that the U.S. House Republican health care plan could cost Pennsylvania nearly 85,000 jobs in the next 10 years are now predicting the Senate Republican plan could be even worse for the Keystone State.

If the Senate GOP's Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) passes, the Commonwealth Fund, a private health care-focused foundation, and the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., estimate in their report that Pennsylvania would lose 109,900 jobs over the coming decade, trailing only New York (132,000) and California (117,000).

In a similar report on the House GOP's American Health Care Act (AHCA) last month, the two groups said Pennsylvania would lose 84,900 jobs by 2026, including 56,000 in the health care sector, second only to New York, which would lose 86,000 jobs.

"Although the Congressional Budget Office found that both the Senate and House bills had similar effects in increasing the number of uninsured, our analysis indicates that the Senate bill has the potential to be more damaging to states' economies," Leighton Ku, director of the Center for Health Policy Research at the Milken Institute School of Public Health and the study's lead author, said in a statement.

After the House passed the AHCA, a 13-member panel of Republican senators, including U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey of Lehigh County, formulated the BCRA. Under blistering criticism and some vacillating Republican senators, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delayed a vote on the BCRA before the July 4 holiday break to allow himself more time to gather enough support to pass it.

However, the newly released Better Care Reconciliation Act: Economic and Employment Consequences for States says the Senate Republican plan could cost the country nearly 1.5 million jobs by 2026, about 500,000 more than the AHCA.

When it comes to Pennsylvania, about 63,000 health sector jobs would be lost by 2026, the report says, nearly 60 percent of the total jobs expected to disappear in the state.

If the BCRA was implemented, gross state product, akin to gross domestic product, would fall by $162 billion nationwide and the total business output would decline by $265 billion by 2026, the report says.

Under the AHCA, those estimates included a $93 billion decline in gross state product and a $148 billion decrease in business output.

Pennsylvania's gross state product would fall by $11.9 billion by 2026 while business output would decline by $19.4 billion under the Senate Republican plan, the report states, compared to $8.9 billion less in gross state product and a $14.2 billion decrease in business output under the House GOP plan.

Generally, the job losses are predicated on spending cuts to Medicaid and less funding for tax subsidies to help people buy health insurance, which would lead to fewer people having coverage and less money to support health-care industry jobs.

In response to the study, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, said the BCRA "is a health care decimator and a job killer and this report proves it. In addition to paying more for less health care coverage with fewer protections, western Pennsylvanians will face the prospect of significant job losses if this scheme becomes law."

On a conference call with reporters Thursday, Casey said BCRA would take a "wrecking ball" to rural Pennsylvania communities and leave more than 150,000 residents of those areas without coverage.

Forty-eight of Pennsylvania's 67 counties, including Lawrence County, are considered "rural" by the state Legislature's Center for Rural Pennsylvania.

"Losing 110,000 jobs in Pennsylvania would be a disaster, and it's why this health care scheme needs to be stopped," Casey said. "After all, it's not a health care bill; it's a scheme designed to cut taxes for the wealthiest and biggest corporations while working families in western Pennsylvania foot the bill."

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that 22 million Americans would lose health coverage by 2026 under BCRA. Previously, the CBO predicted 23 million Americans would lose coverage under the House plan.

"As health care premiums and deductibles continue to skyrocket and choices dwindle, it is more urgent than ever that we repeal and replace Obamacare," Toomey said Friday in a statement provided by his office.

"Relying on CBO's findings as the basis for an employment study will lead to dubious conclusions considering that many equally knowledgeable and nonpartisan experts have come to very different projections than the CBO about the effects of the Senate bill," Toomey said.

The conservative Commonwealth Foundation, however, has said cutting federal spending "can unleash Pennsylvania's economy" because "out-of-control" Medicaid spending is a key factor in high taxes.

Pennsylvania lost nearly 16,000 small-business jobs because of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, the foundation said, citing an American Action Forum estimate. Also, the expected economic stimulus from the ACA and Medicaid expansion "never materialized," the foundation said in an email supporting Toomey's efforts.

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