>
Article snippet: Alexia Manon Senior is 27 and healthy — the type of person who might be most tempted to forgo health insurance if Republicans enact a tax bill that repeals the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that most Americans have coverage or pay a penalty. But Ms. Manon Senior, a graduate student in Miami, said she would hold tight to her coverage, at least as long as she keeps getting nearly $5,000 a year in government subsidies to pay for most of it. “The reason why I’m currently in the A.C.A. is not because I want to avoid the tax penalty,” she said. “It’s because of the ‘What if?’ If something happens and I leave the hospital with a $10,000 bill, it’s a lot of money that I don’t have.” People like Ms. Manon Senior complicate the argument of Senate Republicans who are counting on repeal of the so-called individual mandate to free up hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for an array of tax cuts to corporations and individuals. They are assuming that without a mandate, many people would no longer buy insurance, so the government would spend billions of dollars less on the subsidies the health law provides to help those under a certain income level pay their premiums. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that doing away with the mandate would result in nearly 13 million more people without insurance and federal savings of $338 billion by 2027. But polling data, analysis from a private forecasting agency and interviews with people who buy coverage thro... Link to the full article to read more