Inslee: ‘Trumpcare’ could push 600,000 off health insurance in Washington

OLYMPIA – The House Republicans’ proposed changes to the nation’s health care system could knock 600,000 Washington residents off their medical insurance, said Gov. Jay Inslee, who is calling the new plan “Trumpcare.”

A preliminary assessment of available information on the GOP plan to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act suggests about 80 percent of the 750,000 people who got insurance under that law would lose it unless the state paid for it, Inslee said. That would cost an estimated $1 billion.

“It is extremely concerning,” said Inslee, who was in Congress when the law, sometimes called Obamacare, passed. “We do not think the nation or our state should go backwards.”

Republican and Democratic governors from around the country are concerned about the replacement plans, said Inslee, who was at the National Governors Association Meeting in Washington, D.C., at the end of February.