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The Trump administration will immediately stop making critically important payments to insurers who sell Obamacare health plans, a bombshell move that is expected to spike premium prices and potentially lead many insurers to exit the marketplace.
The decision to end the billions of dollars worth of so-called cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments came after months of threats by President Donald Trump to do just that. The news came only hours after Trump signed an executive order that Obamacare advocates said could badly harm the individual insurance marketplaces.
Those advocates, along with insurers, health-care provider groups, patient groups and officials in many states, have expressed concerns for months that the cost-sharing reimbursements would be cut off by Trump.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, sharply criticized Trump in a series of Twitter posts late Thursday night.
Two months ago, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that individual health plan premiums would be 20 percent higher than originally projected if the payments ceased. The CBO also estimated premiums would be 25 percent higher than they otherwise would be by 2020, and that the federal deficit would be increased by almost $200 billion if the CSRs ended.
The payments, worth $7 billion or so to insurers this year and up to $10 billion or more next year, reimburse insurers for discounts in out-of-pocket health costs they give to low-income Obamacare customers. The discounts must be offered by law.
However, congressional Republicans successfully challenged in a lawsuit the Obama administration's decision to make the reimbursement payments to insurers without first getting the express authorization for such spending from Congress.
Now, both California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said they would file lawsuits seeking to prevent Trump from ending the subsidies.
The two attorneys general were part of a group of 18 state AGs who were given permission this year to intervene in the pending appeal of the federal court decision that had ruled the CSR payments were illegal given their lack of Congressional authorization.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/obamacare-bombshell-trump-kills-key-payments-to-health-insurers.htm
The decision to end the billions of dollars worth of so-called cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments came after months of threats by President Donald Trump to do just that. The news came only hours after Trump signed an executive order that Obamacare advocates said could badly harm the individual insurance marketplaces.
Those advocates, along with insurers, health-care provider groups, patient groups and officials in many states, have expressed concerns for months that the cost-sharing reimbursements would be cut off by Trump.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, sharply criticized Trump in a series of Twitter posts late Thursday night.
Two months ago, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that individual health plan premiums would be 20 percent higher than originally projected if the payments ceased. The CBO also estimated premiums would be 25 percent higher than they otherwise would be by 2020, and that the federal deficit would be increased by almost $200 billion if the CSRs ended.
The payments, worth $7 billion or so to insurers this year and up to $10 billion or more next year, reimburse insurers for discounts in out-of-pocket health costs they give to low-income Obamacare customers. The discounts must be offered by law.
However, congressional Republicans successfully challenged in a lawsuit the Obama administration's decision to make the reimbursement payments to insurers without first getting the express authorization for such spending from Congress.
Now, both California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said they would file lawsuits seeking to prevent Trump from ending the subsidies.
The two attorneys general were part of a group of 18 state AGs who were given permission this year to intervene in the pending appeal of the federal court decision that had ruled the CSR payments were illegal given their lack of Congressional authorization.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/obamacare-bombshell-trump-kills-key-payments-to-health-insurers.htm