New Republican plan to repeal Obamacare without replacement would double costs, leave 32 million uninsured

Republicans have a conundrum: They hate the Affordable Care Act (because Obama did it, so it’s automatically bad), but all their bills to replace it have failed one after the other – it turns out once people had it, they realized they liked it. Republicans could just let Obamacare stand, but that would entail betraying their years-long campaign slogans (not to mention it would be the right thing, and that’s clearly not in their repertoire). So, what to do?

Tear it down without bothering to patch the gaping holes that would leave in the US healthcare system, apparently. That’s exactly what they’re trying to do now, and a new Congressional Budget Office report makes it clear just how mind-bogglingly stupid and evil that would be:

A new official analysis released Wednesday finds that repealing much of Obamacare without a replacement law would increase the number of people without health insurance by 32 million people, double insurance premiums in the individual plan market and leave most of the United States without an insurer selling such plans by 2026.

The report comes as Republican leaders in the Senate, desperate to pass some kind of health-care law, have said that next week they might consider a possible Obamacare repeal bill that could eventually be amended to include a replacement.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated Wednesday that with a repeal-but-no replacement bill the number of uninsured is expected to be 17 million higher than if Obamacare remains in place. And by 2020 there would be 20 million more uninsured people, CBO said.

That tally would grow to 32 million by 2026, the report said.

There are simply no words to adequately describe the sheer heartlessness and monstrousness of this plan (if it can even be called that). People have been labeled enemies of the state for acts that caused less damage to the country than what the Republicans are threatening.

The only silver lining is that the repeal-only bill is even less likely to pass than all their other attempts were, but the fact that they’ll even try it (in a vote forced by that human moral atrocity, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)) is proof enough that the Republican Party isn’t even pretending to care about the nation’s best interests anymore.

(via Joe.My.God.)