President Trump’s move late Thursday to cut off critical federal payments to insurers sent shock waves through the healthcare system Friday, threatening widespread disruption to markets nationwide and igniting new legal and political battles over the Affordable Care Act.
Caught in the middle are millions of Americans likely to see their insurance premiums shoot higher as the administration intensifies its effort to dismantle the 2010 healthcare law, often called Obamacare.
Insurers have said that markets in some parts of the country could collapse, leaving many consumers who don’t get insurance on the job with no choices for health plans. And state insurance regulators predicted premiums in the individual market nationally would rise by 12% to 15% next year because of the cutoff.
“These kinds of decisions have real-life consequences,” warned Stacey E. Stewart, president of the March of Dimes. “It is not fair for our leaders to play games with people’s health and their healthcare.”
The move to cut off the money, known as cost-sharing reduction payments, came after months of indecision by the administration on the issue.
It marked a sudden lurch by Trump back to a strictly hard-line approach on healthcare after a brief period in which the administration had sent mixed signals on whether it might cooperate with bipartisan efforts in Congress to strengthen the Obamacare markets, rather than upend them.
The money at issue is roughly $7 billion in annual payments that the federal government makes to insurers to reimburse them for reducing deductibles and co-payments for low-income consumers, something the law requires health plans to do.
Curated from Trump healthcare move threatens sharply higher premiums and market chaos
