Cutting Insurance Company Subsidies
Could Mean More Money for People
By
Sarah Okeson
Trump’s difficulty
grasping the arcane intricacies of how government works in this country could
lead to actually increasing enrollment in Obamacare, the
federal health insurance program that Trump hates so much.
Trump famously said in
February that health-care law is “an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew
health care could be so complicated.”
The Affordable Care
Act is complicated. Covered California, the marketplace for
the Affordable Care Act in California, ran some numbers when they were trying to
figure out what the impact could be if Trump followed through on his threats to
end payments to insurance companies to help them offer health insurance.
What Covered
California found is that enrollment could actually rise by about 14,000
statewide. That’s because financial help for low- and moderate-income consumers
who buy the policies would increase as the prices of the policies rose.
The increased help
means the net price for insurance for low- and moderate-income families would
stay the same or fall, and more people would buy health insurance under the
Affordable Care Act.
About 20,000 more
people in low- and moderate-income families would be covered. That would be
offset by about 6,000 people who would drop coverage because they make too much
to get financial help from the government and the prices would be too high.
It’s unclear how much
enrollment could rise nationwide because the study was just done for
California. The big loser is the federal government which would shoulder a 29%
increase just in California.
The Congressional
Budget Office calculated that ending the payments to insurance companies to
help them offer insurance under the Affordable Care Act will increase the federal deficit by $194 billion over
10 years.
Congress could step in
to reinstate the payments during budget negotiations.
“This is the
equivalent of health-care arson,” said Sen. Chris
Murphy (D-Conn.) “He is literally setting the entire health-care system on fire
just because the president is upset that the United States Congress won’t pass
a repeal bill.”
States could also ask
for waivers from the federal government that would potentially allow them
to collect a windfall in tax dollars.
It works like this:
the waivers, if approved, let states offer their own versions of the Affordable
Care Act. The states can then keep money that the federal government would have
otherwise spent.
In California’s case, the state could craft a waiver to pay
$750 million to insurers to help them fund the program and then turn around and
collect $976 million from the federal government for the increased cost of help
to consumers.
The net profit for
California would be $226 million. More money that we, the taxpayers, would pay
for Trump’s incompetence and hatred of Obamacare.
ACTION BOX / What
You Can Do About It
A reminder: Trump has
drastically cut the open enrollment season for 2018. It runs for just six
weeks, from Nov. 1 through Dec. 15. If you need insurance, go to healthcare.gov to
get started.
Let your senators and representatives know
that you support the Affordable Care Act and oppose underhanded efforts by
Trump and other Republicans to take away people’s health insurance.
Rhode
Island voters should know that all of the Rhode Island Congressional delegation
opposes Trump’s attacks on the Affordable Care Act. Letting them know you
support their efforts is a good thing to do.