The effects of a repeal of ACA

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One way or another repeal and replace is going to messy, with numerous victims. And we're polite, here.

Laszewski doesn’t hide his point of view: He’s no fan of the Affordable Care Act. But he sees the Republicans’ new Obamacare strategy — to repeal the law, but leave it in place for three years as they work to create a replacement plan — as an absolutely terrible way to fix it. “The problem is when you have an insurance market, and the new administration declares it DOA, it will go into death throes,” Laszewski says.

Laszewski argues that the one way to stabilize the insurance market — to ensure that health insurers don’t flee — is for the federal government to guarantee to cover their losses. But the politics of that aren’t easy: This would mean reestablishing an Obamacare program that Republicans have previously branded “a bailout for insurance companies.”

“Republicans are being awfully naive”: an expert explains why Obamacare repeal and delay won’t work - Vox

And then there is the new health secretary..

Another key aspect of Obamacare — one Trump has said he would consider keeping — that prevents insurers from denying coverage based on a preexisting condition, would change. Under Price's proposal, people would be able to continue coverage if they shifted from the employer market to the individual market, but only if they have no interruptions in coverage.

Thus, a break in care would allow insurers to deny coverage to people with an illness. For those who do not maintain that care, Price's plan would institute state-level high-risk pools to help cover them. The Price plan would provide $1 billion in federal funding to help control costs for these pools. The Commonwealth Fund, however, a nonpartisan health-policy think thank, estimates that these pools would require well over $170 billion a year in federal funding to cover those who today have ACA-based plans.

Additionally, such high-risk pools typically have premium costs double those of normal individual-market plans. The expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare would also be rolled back under Price's plan, shifting roughly 15 million people from the government-sponsored insurance to the individual marketplace. The expansion provided coverage for those making roughly $16,490 and below annually. Questions loom over, even with a subsidy, how affordable it will be for those people to obtain plans on the individual market.

Tom Price, Donald Trump HHS secretary, wants Obamacare gone - Business Insider