Leighton Ku and his colleagues at George Washington University’s Milken School of Public Health and the Commonwealth Fund just published a very important new report with state-by-state estimates on how many jobs would be lost if the Affordable Care Act is repealed without a replacement attached. The report found that repealing the tax credits and federal support for Medicaid expansions would have broad economic repercussions.
Beyond loss of coverage for individuals, the authors estimate that ACA repeal would have the following effects:
- About 2.6 million jobs could be lost across all 50 states and D.C. in 2019.
- One-third of the total 2.6 million job losses would be concentrated in health care. The remaining two-thirds of losses would be spread across other sectors including construction, real estate, retail and finance.
- Gross state product could fall by $1.5 trillion in 2019-2023.
The authors note that health care will comprise almost one-fifth (18.5%) of the nation’s economy by 2019 so it is no surprise that such a major upheaval in health coverage would have such broad economic repercussions. To learn more about how repealing the ACA would trigger reductions in employment and impact economic growth in your state, check out the state-by-state data center.
