How South Carolina — and all the states — will be affected by Obamacare repeal

Jan. 25--On the day of his inauguration, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to undo the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. Republican senators followed up with budget reconciliation on Jan. 12 to begin defunding large sections of the law, followed by the U.S. House Jan. 14.

The ACA, also known as Obamacare, enrolled more than 20 million people in insurance by early 2016. Its reversal is expected to raise the uninsured rate by an estimated 18 million in the first year following repeal, and 32 million by 2026, according to official estimates.

But the effects of ACA repeal are not equally spread among the states. Financial website WalletHub conducted an analysis of seven indicators, such as growth in the uninsured ranks and potential economic effects from loss of tax credits and Medicaid expansion, to rank states by the effect of ACA repeal. South Carolina ranked 7th least affected. Click or tap on states for their ranking information. Scroll below the map and table to read more about what indicators were used to determine the ranking.

Source: WalletHub

States by score

Overall Rank State Total Score Overall Rank State Total Score

1 Massachusetts 81.90 27 Wisconsin 41.36

2 West Virginia 73.32 28 Louisiana 41.12

3 Kentucky 70.52 29 Indiana 39.49

4 Rhode Island 67.09 30 Hawaii 33.93

5 Oregon 66.44 31 Nebraska 33.61

6 North Dakota 63.99 32 Nevada 32.44

7 New Hampshire 62.44 33 New York 30.48

8 Michigan 61.19 34 South Dakota 28.83

9 Ohio 55.05 35 Wyoming 28.70

10 Connecticut 54.30 36 Tennessee 27.92

11 Iowa 52.07 37 Idaho 27.16

12 Pennsylvania 51.51 38 Missouri 24.82

13 Arkansas 51.46 39 Virginia 23.92

14 District of Columbia 50.99 40 North Carolina 23.62

15 New Jersey 50.95 41 Florida 21.07

16 California 50.50 42 Alaska 20.48

17 New Mexico 49.45 43 Georgia 20.45

18 Montana 48.07 44 Kansas 19.08

19 Illinois 47.30 45 Utah 17.79

20 Washington 47.07 46 South Carolina 17.15

21 Maine 46.47 47 Arizona 15.72

22 Minnesota 46.11 48 Alabama 15.35

23 Maryland 45.18 49 Oklahoma 10.01

24 Vermont 44.36 50 Mississippi 9.72

25 Colorado 43.05 51 Texas 8.51

26 Delaware 41.97

Methodology

In order to assess the impact of the ACA's repeal at the state level, WalletHub's analysts compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across seven key metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most negative outcome for the state.

The authors then calculated the overall score for each state and the District using its weighted average across all metrics and constructed a final ranking based on the resulting scores.

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