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NJ Advocates Fighting To Preserve Obamacare

Ray Castro is an analyst at New Jersey Policy Perspective
Phil Gregory

Those in New Jersey striving to preserve the Affordable Care Act say it's the political fight of a generation.

Maura Collinsgru leads the New Jersey for Health Care coalition. She says repealing Obamacare without an adequate replacement would threaten every community.

"The loss of federal funds, jobs, and coverage losses will harm not only already struggling families. It will strain the resources of state, county and local governments."

Ray Castro with New Jersey Policy Perspective says scrapping the Affordable Care Act without a replacement would cause the state to lose $4 billion in federal funds each year and lead to significant job losses.

"The localities would have to cope with decreased revenues because of loss of thousands of health and other jobs while the demand for county services would escalate to response to the increase in problems like mental illness, substance abuse, homelessness, and even contagious diseases that could result from ACA repeal."

Castro says more than 200,000 elderly residents could lose the so-called donut hole assistance in Medicare drug coverage and have to pay about $1200 more each year, forcing them to choose between paying for medicine or rent.

Congressional Republicans are trying to reach agreement on some replacement for Obamacare, but health care advocates are concerned there's no consensus yet on a new plan.