I understand the arguments. I just disagree with both the policy and the method meeting costs. To start, I would prefer Medicare for All (including supplemental policies and drug policies). The overcall costs would be much, much lower.
As it is, the Affordable Care Act gave us lots and lots of benefits that we're not giving up. Expanded Medicaid and forcing companies to accept those with pre-conditions are the most obvious.
As a society, we have to decide how to reduce premiums. One option was to force those who didn't want insurance to pay. Another was to have the government pay subsidies to the insurance companies (Trump has decided not to). Both of these are gone at the moment resulting in higher deductibles and premiums. The Senate will decided what to do. The Republican COULD decide to run on a platform that Obamacare is terrible and that removing the mandate and subsidies didn't add mightily to premium increases. Or, they can agree to a fix, which they will do.
The 13 million are composed of two groups
1) Those who don't want insurance
The mandate was the most unpopular part of the Act. It won't come back, unless there is a system for all like Medicare. No one likes this idea of dealing with the reducing the debt from Obamacare. Everyone would rather reduce the costs, the real costs.
2) Those who will drop out because of high premiums or deductibles
This is where the congressional focus will be. Republicans promised to lower premiums. This can now be their issue if they enact legislation that brings premiums done, even if they aren't as low as they were in 2016.
Health-care cuts in GOP tax bill will cost people and states more long-term
The Senate Republican tax bill seeks to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate provision. The will do this by using the proceeds to partially offset over a trillion-and-a-half-dollar deficit that the bill would create.
While it sounds nearly painless that repealing this health-care provision would save taxpayers money — without the incentive from the mandate, some 13 million people, most of whom currently receive reduced-cost insurance, are expected to fail to take up that coverage, saving the government from making those coverage payments — it isn’t.
In the health insurance market, people who fail to take up coverage not only harm their own health and access to care, but they also shift costs and coverage burdens onto the rest of us who pay for health care.
