Attack on ‘Obamacare’ jolts health consumers, U.S. politics

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt move to cut off federal payments to insurers jolted America’s health care and political worlds alike on Friday, threatening to boost premiums for millions, disrupt insurance markets and shove Republicans into a renewed civil war over their efforts to shred “Obamacare.”

Defiant Democrats, convinced they have important leverage, promised to press for a bipartisan deal to restore the money by year’s end. That drive could split the GOP. On one side: pragmatists seeking to avoid political damage from hurting consumers. On the other: conservatives demanding a major weakening of the Affordable Care Act as the price for returning the money.

“The American people will know exactly where to place the blame,” declared Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, all but daring Trump to aggravate what could be a major issue in the 2018 congressional elections.

The money goes to companies for lowering out-of-pocket costs such as co-payments and deductibles for low- and middleincome customers. It will cost about $7 billion US this year and help more than six million people.

Ending the payments would affect insurers because former president Barack Obama’s law requires them to reduce their poorer customers’ costs. Carriers are likely to recoup the lost money by increasing 2018 premiums for people buying their own health insurance policies.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners estimated that Trump’s move would produce a 12 per cent to 15 per cent upsurge in premiums, while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office put the figure at 20 per cent.

Trump has long derided the subsidies as bailouts to insurers, even though the payments and the cost reductions for consumers are required by law.

The scrapping of subsidies would affect millions more consumers in states won by Trump last year, including Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, than in states won by Hillary Clinton.