NEW Report: Nearly 27 Million Americans Without Insurance After Losing Their Jobs

New data from the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that nearly 27 million Americans are without health insurance after a job loss, another staggering number that underscores how President Trump and Republicans in the Senate – working “hand in glove” – have failed in the response to this pandemic.

As those without insurance scramble for coverage, Republicans are making it harder: their lawsuit to end the Affordable Care Act would gut protections for pre-existing conditions coverage and reverse Medicaid expansion that many are now eligible for and will rely on to avoid any coverage gap. Even now, in the middle of a pandemic, not one Republican senator has taken meaningful steps to stop the GOP’s lawsuit to end the ACA.

Republicans are also making it more difficult for newly-unemployed and uninsured Americans to get coverage. GOP senators have refused to take action to challenge the Trump administration’s decision to keep ACA special enrollment closed. 

“The president said what Republicans stand for, and that is to ‘terminate health care,’” said DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss. “Republicans in the Senate have voted to repeal the health care law, tear down pre-existing conditions and are now making it harder for those impacted by the coronavirus pandemic to get the coverage they’ve lost. Voters will remember how Republicans continued to target their health care even in the middle of a public health and economic crisis.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Axios: Coronavirus likely forced 27 million off their health insurance

By Bob Herman

• Roughly 27 million people have likely have lost job-based health coverage since the coronavirus shocked the economy, according to new estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

• Why it matters: Most of these people will be able sign up for other sources of coverage, but millions are still doomed to be uninsured in the midst of a pandemic.

• The bottom line: The coronavirus is blowing up health insurance at a time when people need it most.

CNN: Nearly 27 million Americans may have lost job-based health insurance, study shows

By Tami Luhby

• Nearly 27 million Americans may have lost their employer-based health insurance amid sweeping layoffs due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report released Wednesday.

• But that would still leave about 5.7 million people who would have to shoulder the full cost of new policies, which could prove too expensive for newly unemployed people. They could continue their employer coverage through COBRA, but would have to pay the entire premium, which totals $7,188 for a single person and $20,576 for a family of four, on average — putting that group at risk for becoming uninsured.

• The report is the latest in a series of dire projections of how the steep economic downturn has likely left millions of people without employer-based policies, which cover roughly 153 million non-elderly workers and their dependents.

• More than 33 million people — or 1 in 5 Americans — have filed initial unemployment claims over the past seven weeks. And a record 20.5 million jobs were lost in April, sending the unemployment rate up to 14.7%.

NPR: Millions Of Americans Have Lost Health Insurance As Unemployment Soars

By Selena Simmons-Duffin 

• The report authors estimate that about six million people do not have those options and are likely to join the ranks of the uninsured for some longer period of time, but even though a lot of people could get coverage, a big question mark here is how many will. Health insurance is complicated and signing up is hard.

• President Trump has made getting rid of Obamacare a majority priority during his first campaign and as president. So now the Trump administration is arguing before the Supreme Court that the law should be struck down and funding for navigators who can help people sign up and advertising for these insurance exchanges has been dramatically cut.

• And the White House decided not to pull a big lever it could use to get more of these millions of these newly uninsured people into the ACA exchanges by creating a federal special enrollment period so that no matter where you live, you don’t need a qualifying event, you can just sign up. The decision not to do that could really impact how many people access this coverage and how many people do become uninsured longer term.

• “The takeaway of this report is the Affordable Care Act is serving as the safety net it was intended to be.”

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