CBO: 14 Million Could Lose Health Insurance By 2018 Under TrumpCare, 24 Million By 2026

The Congressional Budget Office just released its scoring of the Republican tax cut for the wealthy* disguised as the "American Health Care Act" (TrumpCare/ RepubliCare) and, well, it's more dystopian than was feared:

An estimated 14 million Americans could lose their health care coverage in 2018, and 24 million by 2026 under a Republican bill to replace Obamacare, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said Monday in an analysis that could make the controversial legislation even tougher for GOP leaders to push through Congress.

"Some of those people would choose not to have insurance because they chose to be covered by insurance under current law only to avoid paying the penalties, and some people would forgo insurance in response to higher premiums," the CBO said in its analysis.

The number of Americans who lose their coverage could rise to 21 million in 2020 and 24 million in 2026 as the GOP plan phases out Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, the CBO said.

This needs to be hung around the neck of every Republican running for office at the national, state and local level in 2018 and beyond. It's the distillation of their "afflicting the afflicted and comforting the comfortable" right- wing philosophy, and they need to be held accountable for their "movement's" nihilism. If the Democratic Party can't pull that off, it's not worth calling itself a political party.

But, that's not all, folks:

CBO projects 52 million uninsured by 2026, due largely to changes to Medicaid.

Big problem for GOP Sens/Govs from Medicaid exp states: pic.twitter.com/XEm6jr5nCM

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) March 13, 2017

Focusing on your average Trump voter:

CBO projects "substantial" hike in premiums for older people: pic.twitter.com/9sfxhc8VIs

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) March 13, 2017

How big a hike?

Analysis | This may be the most brutal number in the CBO report https://t.co/ofGbYYGUuj pic.twitter.com/Cw5wyOEpzb

— Sarah Posner (@sarahposner) March 14, 2017

Lotta those older enrollees are Trump voters, as @Nate_Cohn has written: https://t.co/sAms2mJNYR

— Margot Sanger-Katz (@sangerkatz) March 13, 2017

Or, put another way --

CBO also says that AHCA will "substantially" raise premiums for older people -- or, as they are known in Washington, "people who vote." pic.twitter.com/JRpELUx1dD

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) March 13, 2017

No wonder Republicans wanted (irony alert) to ram this down the throats of Democrats in Congress, and were working overtime to discredit CBO in advance of this scoring. The only places this could be considered a triumph are Galt's Gulch and the Anthems of the world.

* Wherein Charlie Pierce warns us not to fall for the Republican's "bogus metric" of improved access to sell their plan, thusly: "Right now, as I sit here, I have 'access' to a Cabriolet. Don't have the money to buy it, though."