Report: Conn., NY could lose thousands of jobs, billions of dollars if Obamacare repealed

Connecticut and New York stand to lose collectively about 167,000 jobs in 2019 and $113.3 billion in gross state product from 2019-2022 if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, according to a new study by The George Washington University.

The study provides the first detailed estimates of the economic and employment effects of partial health reform repeal in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, assuming termination in January 2019, and does not include estimates related to potential replacement policies, which are unknown at this time. President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress have vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with another, yet-to-be-determined plan.

The report states that about 2.6 million jobs could be lost nationwide in 2019, followed by another 2.85 million in 2020, nearly 3 million in 2021, and about 2.85 million in 2022. Almost a third of those jobs would be in health care, with the remainder in such industries as construction, real estate, retail trade, finance and insurance.

The report goes on to estimate that gross state products (analogous to the nation”™s gross domestic product) could fall by $256 billion in 2019, with total business output declining by $441 billion; from 2019 to 2023, gross state products could fall by $1.5 trillion and total business output could be cut by $2.6 trillion.

Those losses could also trigger reductions in state and local tax revenues, amounting to about $48 billion lost over five years; at the same time, state and local governments will face a greater need for uncompensated care and other services due to the rising tide of uninsured persons, according to the study.