![CBO: Trump could cause healthcare costs to soar for millions of Americans if he ends critical Obamacare payments]()
The Congressional Budget Office released its report on the impact of President Donald Trump ending Obamacare's cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments on Tuesday.
CSR payments help to offset the cost to insurers that offer plans with low out-of-pocket costs to poorer Americans.
The payments became the subject of a lawsuit between the Obama administration and the Republican-controlled House in 2015. The House argued the way the CSRs were paid through the executive branch was illegal, and a judged ruled in their favor in 2016.
The Obama administration appealed the ruling, allowing the payments to continue. Trump has threatened to drop the appeal and cut off the payments repeatedly over the past few months.
Insurers have warned that without CSRs, they would likely have to dramatically raise premiums for 2018, well above their current planned increases.
Now, the CBO's nonpartisan analysis found that many of the insurers would follow through on their warnings. Here's a breakdown of the key findings:
· *Premiums would increase more than originally projected: *Premiums for 2018 would increase by 20% over the CBO's current baseline and by 25% over the 2020 projection. This would happen because in order to qualify for the Obamacare markets, insurers would still have to provide low-income enrollees with the same level of care without those costs being offset. "Because they would still be required to bear the costs of CSRs even without payments from the government, participating insurers would raise premiums of 'silver' plans to cover the costs," said the CBO.
· *The federal deficit would increase as more people relied on subsidies to access insurance: *The federal deficit would increase by $194 billion between 2018 and 2026 compared to the current baseline. "Because the tax credits would increase when premiums for silver plans rose, the agencies estimate that the average subsidy per person receiving premium tax credits to purchase nongroup health insurance would increase," said the CBO report. Put another way, since premiums would increase with no CSRs, Americans would need more help paying the higher costs through subsidies. The increased cost of subsidies, said the CBO, would be greater than simply funding the CSRs.
· *Some insurers would pull out of the Obamacare markets, but not enough to cause a collapse: *According to the CBO, if Trump ended CSRs, insurers would exit some of the Obamacare exchanges due to the higher costs. The exits, said the report, would impact areas where only 5% of the US population lives. By 2020, "almost all areas" would have at least one option for insurance according to the report. Health policy experts have previously warned that ending CSRs could lead to a mass exodus of insurers from the market; however, the CBO does not expect this to be the case.
*SEE ALSO: Obamacare just got some much-needed good news*
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The Congressional Budget Office released its report on the impact of President Donald Trump ending Obamacare's cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments on Tuesday.
At the request of Nancy Pelosi, the Congressional Budget Office has just released a study intended to better understand the potential economic impacts that would result from the cancellation of taxpayer funded Obamacare subsidies (a.k.a. "cost-sharing reductions" or "CSRs"). The report is entitled "The Effects of Terminating Payments for Cost-Sharing Reductions," and, among other things finds that cutting CSRs would cause a 20% spike in Obamacare premiums in 2018 and result in a $194 billion increase in the deficit from 2017 through 2026.
