MacArthur Amendment to American Health Care Act Would Cause Even More Harm to New Jersey

From New Jersey Policy Perspective

Rep. Tom MacArthur of New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District – the only member of the state’s Congressional delegation who supported the first iteration of the American Health Care Act – has now resurrected the bill with a new amendment that retains all the worst elements of the original plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and sharply reduces protections for pre-existing conditions and other health benefits.

Because the MacArthur amendment leaves most of the previous bill intact, in New Jersey the proposal would still cause:

• About a half million New Jerseyans to lose their health insurance
• The phase-out of the Medicaid expansion, which would eliminate coverage for 562,000 residents and sharply reduce federal funds for the state’s budget
• Reduced health care for up to 1.8 million New Jersey seniors, people with disabilities and children due to a permanent cap on federal Medicaid funds that would reduce funding to New Jersey by 20 percent, the largest reduction in the nation
• An average $2,740 increase in out-of-pocket health care costs for 250,000 residents who have purchased insurance through the Marketplace, which would end coverage for many of them
• Increased income inequality due to major tax cuts for 164,000 of New Jersey’s highest income households, including millionaire and billionaire residents
• The loss of tens of thousands of jobs with the loss of over $30 billion in federal funds over ten years
• A major financial threat to New Jersey’s hospitals

Read the complete report from the New Jersey Policy Perspective.