This is something we published back in May, but is on point again with Trump calling for repeal of Obamacare. To put these estimates in perspective, depending on which one you use, repeal of Obamacare could result annually in 41% to 75% of the total number of American troops killed in the Vietnam War, most of which occurred over a nine year period.
The most Americans, 16,899, were killed in Vietnam in 1968. By comparison, repeal of Obama care would kill between 1.4 and 2.6 times as many every year.
Calling the GOP repeal of Obamacare an act of mass manslaughter is hardly an exaggeration. For example, one definition of the crime includes;
Involuntary manslaughter occurs when one person, while committing an unlawful or reckless act, unintentionally kills another.
There's no question but that the GOP Don't Care Bill is a reckless act
and there is no question that, should it be passed in both houses, it
would kill thousands of people. Whether this is intentional o the
Republicans' part is an arguable point, but manslaughter is a reckless
consequence rather than a purposeful act.
Passing such a bill now is dramatically different than if there wasn't
any Obamacare. It has the same effect, say, of quietly removing the
brakes on thousands of people's cars. And there is a strong argument
that it is a criminal act.
How many people will be killed as a result is debatable, but here are some of the estimates:
David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, Washington Post - For
more than 30 years, we have studied how death rates are affected by
changes in health-care coverage, and we’re convinced that an ACA repeal
could cause tens of thousands of deaths annually. The story is in the
data: The biggest and most definitive study of what happens to death
rates when Medicaid coverage is expanded, published in the New England
Journal of Medicine, found that for every 455 people who gained coverage
across several states, one life was saved per year. Applying that
figure to even a conservative estimate of 20 million losing coverage in
the event of an ACA repeal yields an estimate of 43,956 deaths annually.
Think Progress
- Nearly 36,000 people could die every year, year after year, if the
incoming president signs legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act.
This figure is based on new data from the Urban Institute examining how
many people will become uninsured if the law is repealed, as well as a
study of mortality rates both before and after the state of
Massachusetts enacted health reforms similar to Obamacare.
Vox-
Very high-quality studies on the impacts of health insurance on
mortality, which come to some pretty clear estimates. This research
suggests that we would see more than 24,000 extra deaths per year in the
US if 20 million people lost their coverage. Again, 20 million is less
than the 24 million the CBO thinks will lose insurance by 2026. So the
death toll from an Obamacare repeal and replacement could be even higher
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