WASHINGTON — Critics of the Republican health care plan the House passed last week mostly have focused on how it might harm Americans with pre-existing health conditions and poor and disabled people who rely on Medicaid — two vulnerable, but defined, populations.

But another change might have more far-reaching effects: eliminating the Affordable Care Act’s “essential health benefits,” or EHBs. That shift could affect almost everybody, including the 156 million Americans who receive health coverage through their employers.

Under the ACA, health plans sold to individuals and small groups (employers with 50 or fewer employees) must include 10 essential benefits: emergency services, habilitative and rehabilitative services, inpatient care, outpatient care, maternity and newborn care, mental health and addiction treatment, lab tests, preventive care, prescriptions, and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

Plans offered by larger employers do not have to include all 10 essential benefits. However, if the plans cover any EHBs, they cannot impose annual or lifetime limits on reimbursements for those expenses.

The House GOP plan would eliminate the federal mandate under the ACA, and instead give states the power to determine what health plans sold on the individual and small group market must cover.

Insurers would be free to sell cheaper, bare-bones plans to young and healthy consumers who don’t think they’ll need certain benefits. Many of those consumers would end up paying less for their health insurance.

Supporters of the GOP plan say it makes little sense to force people to pay for services they don’t want. Why, for example, should a single man have to pay extra for a policy that covers maternal health care?

“That is a commandeering approach to health insurance which those of us on our side find objectionable,” said Edmund Haislmaier, senior health policy research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

But for people needing broader coverage, the change likely would mean higher premiums and fewer choices. It also would force people who opt for bare-bones coverage to pay out-of-pocket for services they unexpectedly need.

The change would affect even those who receive coverage through their employers, because the prohibitions on annual and lifetime caps are tied to the essential benefits.