24 Million People Will Lose Health Insurance Under Republican Health Plan, CBO Says

Twenty-four million people will lose health insurance by 2026 if the healthcare plan put forward by House Republicans is enacted, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in a report released Monday.

The CBO estimated the American Health Care Act, the bill proposed by House Republicans to repeal and replace the American Care Act, also known as Obamacare, will result in 14 million Americans losing their insurance in 2018. The report noted that most of that number would be the result of the repeal of Obamacare's individual mandate, which is the requirement under current law that Americans purchase health insurance or face a fine. The number of Americans losing health insurance would jump to 21 million in 2020 and 24 million in 2026. The CBO estimated that a total of 52 million people would be uninsured under the American Health Care Act by 2026. Under current law, only 28 million Americans would be without health insurance by 2026, the CBO said.

Read: Will The Congressional Budget Office Say How Many People Could Lose Health Insurance?

The new healthcare bill would save $337 billion in federal spending between 2017 and 2026. Reductions in Medicaid spending and the elimination of Obamacare subsidies for non-group health insurance would create the largest part of the savings, the CBO said.

The CBO projection was higher than an analysis by Standard & Poor last week that found as many as 10 million people could lose coverage.

In January, then President-elect Donald Trump said a Republican Obamacare replacement would provide "insurance for everybody." On Sunday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said he couldn't say how many people would lose health insurance under the plan.

"People are going to do what they want to do with their lives because we believe in individual freedom in this country," Ryan said Sunday on CBS' "Face The Nation."