MAP: Where Obamacare Repeal Would Hit The Hardest

A new interactive map reveals who would be most affected by the Republican Obamacare repeal bill, where those Americans live and what the effects would be. It also breaks down which areas stand to be hardest hit by coverage losses, both on a state and county level.

The map was released first to TPM by The Century Foundation. It assumed the Senate will follow the House version’s model. It assesses the effects all the way out to 2026, period that the Congressional Budget Office assessed in its score of the House bill, the American Health Care Act.

The researchers took the by-state coverage loss number tabulated by the Center for American Progress, in its analysis of the CBO report, and divided that by the total under 65 population (as those 65 and older are presumably on Medicare). The researchers then divvied up the states into three coverage loss categories—high, medium and low—based on the percentage of population losing coverage, per CAP’s estimates.

The Century Foundation researchers did the same exercise on the county level. The researchers looked at the 2015 American Community Survey data on county level enrollment in various types of health coverage and followed CAP’s model on how those populations would be affected by the American Health Care Act. The coverage losses were divided by the total under 65 county population, and those with higher percentages of coverage losses were distinguished accordingly.

The maps also show how many total people are on the Obamacare exchanges, Medicaid, employer plans and Medicare. The accompanying Century Foundation report outlines how all of those coverage programs stand to be affected by the House bill.