WASHINGTON (AP) -- Washington's mayor says repealing President Barack Obama's health-care law could cost the city up to $623 million a year.
Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a letter Friday to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy that more than 96 percent of District of Columbia residents have health insurance as a result of Obamacare. That includes 19,000 people with health insurance through the individual marketplace and 60,000 people insured through the small business marketplace. The District's population is 681,000 and it has one of the lowest rates of uninsured people in the country.
The Democratic mayor says many of the insured people have complex medical problems and couldn't afford premiums without federal subsidies.
She's urging Congress not to repeal the law and instead to expand access to affordable health coverage.