Previous data shows that a repeal of the Affordable Care Act will more than double the number of uninsured people in West Virginia. Read.
A new report by the Economic Policy Institute looks at a repeal’s impact on employment. It estimates how the combination of tax cuts and spending cuts will affect employment across the nation.
The report’s main findings show:
– ACA repeal would cut federal spending nationwide by about $109 billion in 2019 and taxes by about $70 billion in 2019.
– The combination of tax cuts and spending cuts in an ACA repeal would reduce national job growth by almost 1.2 million in 2019, all else equal. That is because the spending cuts would hurt job growth more than the tax cuts would help it. The benefit cuts would come mostly out of the pockets of cash-constrained households that will be likely to significantly cut back their spending in response to lower disposable income, while the tax cuts would disproportionately go to high-income households who tend to save a significant portion of increases in disposable income.
– The jobs that would be lost are not just health-care jobs.
– The top 15 job-losing states, as measured by jobs lost as a share of both the total employment and the share of residents under age 65, are Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.
– West Virginia would lose $1.2 billion in federal health-care dollars.
– Total employment in West Virginia would drop by 2 percent and 15,412 jobs in West Virginia would be lost.
– ACA repeal would eliminate 20 out of every 1,000 jobs in West Virginia.
Congress should act responsibly and move forward with legislation that makes positive improvements to the Affordable Care. Any vote to repeal all or part of the current law should move simultaneously with a legislation that clearly defines what comes next for the West Virginia economy, for the West Virginia state budget, and for insurance coverage in our state. This legislative package should be vetted through the normal legislative process that allows for committee hearings and public input, and requires the normal 60 vote approval in the Senate.
