TRUMP ENDING ACA PAYMENTS
Colorado’s top insurance regulator says changes “will cause problems”
President Donald Trump plans to end critical payments to health insurers that help millions of lower-income Americans afford coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
WASHINGTON» President Donald Trump is throwing a bomb into the insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act, choosing to end critical payments to health insurers that help millions of lower-income Americans afford coverage. The decision follows an executive order on Thursday to allow alternative health plans that skirt the law’s requirements.
The White House confirmed late Thursday that it would halt federal payments for cost-sharing reductions, although a statement did not specify when. According to two people briefed on the decision, the cutoff will be as of November. The subsidies total about $7 billion this year.
Trump has threatened for months to stop the payments, which help eligible consumers afford their deductibles and other outof-pocket expenses, but he held off while other administration officials warned him that such a move would cause an implosion of the ACA marketplaces that could be blamed on Republicans.
Health insurers and state regulators have been in a state of high anxiety over the prospect of the marketplaces cratering because of such White House action. The fifth year’s open-enrollment season for consumers to buy coverage through ACA exchanges will open in less than three weeks, and insurers have said that stopping the cost-sharing payments would be the greatest step the Trump administration could take to harm the marketplaces — and the law.
Ending the payments is grounds for any insurer to back out of its federal contract to sell health plans for 2018.
The cost-sharing reductions have long been the subject of a political and legal seesaw. Congressional Republicans argued that the sprawling 2010 health-care law that established the subsidies does not include specific language providing appropriations to cover the government’s cost. House Republicans sued Health and Human Services over the payments during former President Barack Obama’s second term. A federal court agreed that they were illegal, and the case has been pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Colorado’s top insurance regulator responded on Thursday to Trump’s health care executive order about alternative health plans with concern, saying the policies endorsed could lead to flimsier coverage in the state and much higher costs for the sick. “The limited benefits, the focus on the healthy at the expense of those with pre-existing conditions, and lack of regulatory oversight will cause problems for the health insurance market as a whole,” said Marguerite Salazar, the state’s insurance commissioner.