The Affordable Care Act impacted many families and their ability to access healthcare. Lower income households who generally would not have been able to afford health care were able to gain access through subsidies within that act. Now, President Trump and other allies in congress are threatening to repeal “Obamacare” as it is otherwise known. That could have vast impacts across the country and locally in Louisiana. WWL’s Tommy Tucker spoke to UNO Economist Walter “Dub” Lane about how a potential repeal could be felt in the region.
“Obamacare did two main things to try to encourage people to buy insurance. One is that they expanded Medicaid, which in Louisiana, added between 400,000 – 500,000 people to Medicaid,” Lane explained. The expansion of the individual market allowed working individuals who did not receive healthcare through their employer to buy individual insurance policies through private companies that were heavily subsidized,” he added. This allowed many gig-based employees and other workers who were employed by smaller companies access to affordable health insurance when they otherwise couldn’t afford it.
During the COVID pandemic, legislation was put in place to expand ACA access. That extended Obamacare to those making higher incomes (closer to the $50,000 - $60,000 range), allowing them to gain premium-free insurance. Those enhancements will expire at the end of 2025, and that leaves many looking at a potential cliff when it comes to health insurance coverage. Coverage will still be available for purchase, but the previously available subsidies will expire, and many won’t be able to afford insurance coverage without that financial bridge.
According to Lane, there are estimates in Louisiana warning that the amount of uninsured in the state could increase by over 20% once subsidies go away and those working with tighter incomes can no longer afford coverage.
“Basically, the people who are still at the lower end of the income scale will still be able to afford Obamacare under the original structure. It’s really when you get into the middle income areas around $50-$60,000 per year … they will then be losing some of their subsidies and prices will go up. Plenty of those people will decide they can’t afford that and stop buying insurance,” Lane went on to explain. Around 92,000 people in Louisiana are using subsidies to purchase health insurance and could face an uncertain future if the Affordable Care Act is actually repealed.