But other possible impacts of the bill began to come into clearer focus on Monday, according to calculations of the Senate Joint Economic Committee, based on the CBO report: Next year, premiums for private health insurance in Oregon urban areas obtained through the state’s health insurance exchange would increase by an average of $749 a year.

That same day, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., responded to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Pointing to the budget office’s statement that the bill would take health care away from 22 million Americans by 2026, Heitkamp discussed how that would affect North Dakota residents. “According to (Congress’) Joint Economic Committee, in 2018, more than 31,000 North Dakotans would lose private health coverage, and those with coverage would see their premiums increase by an average of almost $800,” she said.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates 22 million Americans would lose health coverage under the Senate GOP bill, the Better Care Reform Act. Estimates of the number of North Dakotans who would lose coverage range from 31,100, according to the congressional Joint Economic Committee, to 70,000 from the Urban Institute.

About 1.6 million people would lose coverage next year, and by 2026 the state would lose $24 billion in federal money for Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid health care plan for the poor, Feinstein told reporters in a conference call with fellow Democrats Gov. Jerry Brown and Sen. Kamala Harris. "It's the most indefensible bill I've actually seen in 24 years in the Senate," Feinstein said.The numbers came from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, Congress' Joint Economic Committee and the state of California, according to Feinstein's office.