Take a wild guess who the largest victims of repealing Obamacare may be?

Last week I attempted to figure out just how many Trump voters would lose their healthcare coverage if/when the ACA is repealed by the Republican Party. Paul Krugman took a "big picture" approach and came up with numbers in the 4-6 million range. My own back-of-the-envelope math came in higher, at perhaps 9 million. I concluded that the actual number is likely somewhere in the middle (4-9 million).

I mention this because this morning the Urban Institute issued their own detailed analysis of just how many people would lose coverage after a partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act shortly after my own projection of lost coverage from a full repeal. Ironically, a partial repeal would be even worse (29.8 million losing coverage) than the already-devastating numbers from a full repeal (23.1 million losing coverage).

However, I almost missed one important item in the Urban Analysis study, right near the top:

The number of uninsured people would rise from 28.9 million to 58.7 million in 2019, an increase of 29.8 million people (103 percent).

...Eighty-two percent of the people becoming uninsured would be in working families, 38 percent would be ages 18 to 34, and 56 percent would be non-Hispanic whites. Eighty percent of adults becoming uninsured would not have college degrees.

Let's look at those stats again, shall we?

  • 29.8 million people would lose their healthcare coverage.
  • 82% of those who would lose their healthcare coverage are in working families.
  • 56% of those who would lose their healthcare coverage are non-Hispanic whites.
  • 80% of those who would lose their healthcare coverage don't have college degrees.

Now I realize that there's not going to be 100% overlap between these three stats (some of the non-Hispanic whites might be part of the 20% who have college degrees, etc), but taken at face value:

  • 82% of 29.8 million = 24.4 million
  • 56% of 24.4 million = 13.7 million
  • 80% of 13.7 million = 10.9 million

Yes, assuming there's 100% overlap here, it sounds like up to 10.9 million of those who would lose their healthcare coverage under a Republican repeal of the Affordable Care Act are...wait for it...

...White Working Class.

Of course, not all "WWC" people voted for Trump; some of those losing coverage are children, not adults; and again, I'm sure not all 10.9 million fit all three descriptions...but I'd say this sure as hell supports that 4-9 million estimate.

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