Last night, NJTV News turned to NJPP’s latest report and our senior policy analyst Ray Castro to help explain to viewers the damage that repeal of the Affordable Care Act would inflict on New Jersey:
Over 1 million residents would lose benefits, according to the report. The state would lose over $4 billion a year in federal funds; 86,000 jobs would be lost and, most dramatically, the report says almost 800 would die as a result.
“This is what would happen if they repealed and did not replace it,” said Castro. “Unfortunately, we don’t know what they’re going to be replacing it with, but what we’ve heard so far is that it’s not really going to help. In fact, it could make matters worse. For example they’re talking about block granting Medicaid, so Medicaid served a lot of different people including children and seniors in nursing homes, so all of them would be vulnerable to further cutbacks in this replacement, so we’re very concerned about that.”
