USADaily -
Donald Trump is responsible for health insurance premiums increasing by double-digit numbers next year, according to a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Kaiser found that two of Donald Trump’s threats — not to enforce the individual mandate (which forces everyone to buy insurance) and threatening to cut off subsidies that insurers use to low copays and deductibles.
The uncertainty over both of those issues could spike premiums for people who buy “silver” plans on the Affordable Care Act exchange or it could spike premiums for everybody.
Here’s more from Kaiser:
Insurers assuming the individual mandate will not be enforced have factored in to their rate increases an additional 1.2% to 20%. Those assuming cost-sharing subsidy payments will not continue and factoring this into their initial rate requests have applied an additional rate increase ranging from 2% to 23%. Because cost-sharing reductions are only available in silver plans, insurers may seek to raise premiums just in those plans if the payments end. We estimate that silver premiums would have to increase by 19% on average to compensate for the loss of CSR payments, with the amount varying substantially by state.
The overall idea is that if insurers don’t know what’s coming, they prepare for the worst. And that means they raise prices more than they would normally have done, had Trump not created this uncertainty.
Here are some of the state-by-state premium increases due solely to Trump’s actions:
Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to let Obamacare “implode,” and he appears to now be helping it do just that. The problem for Republicans is that they now own Obamacare — and it’s spawn, TrumpCare, whether they pass legislation or not. Republicans are now responsible for the health insurance premium increases that Americans will see next year, and the year’s following. TrumpCare is now the de facto, if not de jure, law of the land. And the GOP will be held responsible in 2018 and 2020.
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