Trump’s Obamacare move could boost premiums for millions

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s abrupt move to cut off federal payments to insurers jolted America’s health-care and political worlds alike, 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, D-N.Y., 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 like co-payments and deductibles for low- and middle-income customers. It will cost about $7 billion 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 estimates that Trump’s move would produce a 12 per cent to 15 per cent upsurge in premiums, while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has put the figure at 20 per cent. That’s on top of premium increases from growing medical costs.

Medical organizations as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business group, joined Saturday in a letter to House and Senate leaders imploring Congress to restore the payments. Without congressional action, the letter said, “millions will face higher premiums, fewer choices, and less access to the medical care they need.”

The insurance industry behemoths America’s Health Insurance Plans and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association signed the letter, along with the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the leading hospital associations and others.

Experts say the political instability over Trump’s effort to undermine Obama’s health-care law could also prompt more insurers to leave markets. As Trump frequently points out, next year about half of U.S. counties will have only one insurer on “Obamacare’s” online marketplaces, up from the one-third of counties with one carrier in 2017.