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FULL TITLE: Judge denies emergency request to force Trump administration to resume paying Obamacare insurers reimbursements
Trumps order results in monthly premium rate hikes in most states for healthcare plans and an additional $194 billion added to the federal deficit. Trumpcare is here folks. Ironically, the hardest hit states (wowza) will be all of the red southern states that voted for Trump in 2016. Premium rates in Mississippi for example, will now jump 45% above what was originally projected by healthcare insurers due to the high number of CSR subsidized patients in this state. In other words, the government subsidized in Mississippi won't pay higher premiums, but everyone else in Mississippi will pay 45% in higher healthcare premiums to make up for the CSR funding shortfall in the state.
Dan Mangan
OCTOBER 25, 2017
A federal judge Wednesday rejected a request that he order the Trump administration to immediately resume paying Obamacare insurers key subsidies that the government cut off in recent days. Judge Vince Chhabria's decision came after a coalition of more than a dozen states last week asked for an emergency order blocking the administration's move to cease paying the insurers. Chhabria denied that bid two days after holding a hearing in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and hearing arguments from lawyers for the states and for the Trump administration. However, the case by the states will continue in that court. And it could ultimately lead to restoration of the so-called cost-sharing reduction payments. The coalition of 18 states and the District of Columbia that sued the Trump administration in an effort to restore the payments has argued that the Affordable Care Act itself authorizes the payments to be made by the government.
Many insurers have already raised their premium prices for Obamacare plans in 2018 significantly higher than they otherwise would have because of Trump's threats to end the payments. In August, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that premium prices of individual health plans would be 25 percent higher than they otherwise would have been by 2020 if the payments were cut off. The premium hikes would seek to make up for the loss of the reimbursements, while at the same time insurers are required by law to continue offering discounts to customers.At the same time, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators is pushing a bill that would restore the payments to insurers. Most Obamacare customers, by having low or moderate incomes, get subsidies from the government that reduce the cost of their premiums. And the value of those subsidies rises as premiums rise. In fact, the CBO has estimated that the federal government will actually add $194 billion to the federal deficit from the extra premium subsidies it will have to pay due to the cutoff of the CSR reimbursements to insurers.
Trumps order results in monthly premium rate hikes in most states for healthcare plans and an additional $194 billion added to the federal deficit. Trumpcare is here folks. Ironically, the hardest hit states (wowza) will be all of the red southern states that voted for Trump in 2016. Premium rates in Mississippi for example, will now jump 45% above what was originally projected by healthcare insurers due to the high number of CSR subsidized patients in this state. In other words, the government subsidized in Mississippi won't pay higher premiums, but everyone else in Mississippi will pay 45% in higher healthcare premiums to make up for the CSR funding shortfall in the state.
