- Joined
- Apr 18, 2013
- Messages
- 94,343
- Reaction score
- 82,728
- Location
- Barsoom
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
Report: Higher premiums if Trump halts ‘Obamacare’ subsidies
Trump will need to make a decision on continuing the ACA subsidies by next week. Trump has long threatened to end the payments, thus injecting chaos and uncertainty into the health insurance industry which would sabotage Obamacare and hurt insurers, hospitals, medical practitioners, and American healthcare consumers and patients. IMO, Trump would accept the trade-off of inflicting pain and suffering on the country in order to fatally wound Obamacare.
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar | AP August 16, 2017
WASHINGTON — Premiums for a popular type of individual health care plan would rise sharply, and more people would be left with no insurance options if President Donald Trump makes good on his threat to stop “Obamacare” payments to insurers, the Congressional Budget Office says. The nonpartisan number crunchers also estimated that cutting off payments that now reduce copays and deductibles for people of modest incomes would add $194 billion to federal deficits over a decade. That head-scratching outcome is because a different Affordable Care Act subsidy would automatically increase as premiums jump, more than wiping out any savings. “Ending the payments to insurers would introduce more chaos into an unsettled market, and perversely end up costing the federal government more in the end,” said Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan group that found similar results.
Insurers say they need a decision from the government now, before they lock down their rates for 2018. Leading Republican lawmakers have called for continuing the payments, at least temporarily, to ensure market stability. For months, Trump has been raising the prospect of terminating payments as a way to trigger a crisis and get Democrats to negotiate on a health care bill. After the GOP drive to repeal “Obamacare” collapsed, the president tweeted: “As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!” Trump elaborated in another tweet, “If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies...will end very soon!”
Trump will need to make a decision on continuing the ACA subsidies by next week. Trump has long threatened to end the payments, thus injecting chaos and uncertainty into the health insurance industry which would sabotage Obamacare and hurt insurers, hospitals, medical practitioners, and American healthcare consumers and patients. IMO, Trump would accept the trade-off of inflicting pain and suffering on the country in order to fatally wound Obamacare.
