Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently released a health care reform plan entitled “Healthcare Reform to Make America Great Again.” This plan has two major components. First, it would fully repeal the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) and replace it with several new policies. Second, it would turn Medicaid into a “block grant” program.
By our estimates, Mr. Trump’s plan to repeal and replace Obamacare would cost roughly $270 billion over ten years including estimates of faster economic growth, and nearly $500 billion under conventional scoring.
The policies would cause almost 21 million people to lose their insurance coverage, as the replacement health care policies would only cover 5 percent of the 22 million individuals who would lose coverage upon the repeal of Obamacare. This would almost double the number of Americans without health insurance.
Block granting Medicaid, meanwhile, could have a wide range of savings depending on details which have yet to be provided. Past proposals have often saved several hundred billions of dollars.
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