Today at around 2 p.m., the Congressional Budget Office will release two key reports: An updated projection of the Affordable Care Act’s budgetary effects, which will reflect the recent Supreme Court decision; and a mirror image analysis of the GOP’s latest effort to repeal the whole law.
Politically, and in budgetary terms, this could amount to very little. But CBO could also conclude that the Court’s decision — which essentially optionalized the ACA’s Medicaid expansion — makes the law much more expensive.
Medicaid is quite cheap — cheaper per patient than the law’s average insurance subsidy. And if as a result of the decision, several million people who should’ve entered Medicaid land in the exchanges instead, the law’s costs will likely climb.
If CBO projects a big spike in the law’s coverage costs, and as a result the law ceases to score as a deficit reducer over the budget window, it’ll turn one of the most contentious fights over the ACA on its head. We’ll let you know when the report lands.
