In his high-stakes strategy to overhaul the federal health law, President Donald Trump is threatening to upend the individual health insurance market with several key policies. But if the market actually breaks, could anyone put it back together again?
The question is more than theoretical. The Trump administration has already acted to depress enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans, has instructed the IRS to back off enforcement of the requirement that most people have health insurance or pay a penalty and threatened to withhold billions of dollars owed to
All of those actions make it more difficult for insurers to enroll the healthy people needed to offset the costs of the sick who make it a priority to have coverage.
The president himself has made his strategy clear in interviews and tweets. “The Democrats will make a deal with me on healthcare as soon as ObamaCare folds — not long,” Trump tweeted March 28. “Do not worry, we are in very good shape!”
But the individual insurance market is not in such good shape. A growing number of insurers are asking for double-digit premium increases or deciding to leave the market altogether. In the latest announcement, Anthem said Tuesday that it was pulling out of the Ohio marketplace next year. And while most analysts say the market probably would eventually rebound, in the short term things could get messy.
Again, The question is more than theoretical. The Trump administration has already acted to depress enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans, has instructed the IRS to back off enforcement of the requirement that most people have health insurance or pay a penalty and threatened to withhold billions of dollars owed to
The president himself has made his strategy clear in interviews and tweets. “The Democrats will make a deal with me on healthcare as soon as ObamaCare folds — not long,” Trump tweeted March 28. “Do not worry, we are in very good shape!”
In his high-stakes strategy to overhaul the federal health law, President Donald Trump is threatening to upend the individual health insurance market with several key policies. But if the market actually breaks, could anyone put it back together again?
The question is more than theoretical. The Trump administration has already acted to depress enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans, has instructed the IRS to back off enforcement of the requirement that most people have health insurance or pay a penalty and threatened to withhold billions of dollars owed to
Is the administration doing what it needs to do to stabilize the market? No, they’re doing the opposite,” said Kevin Counihan, CEO of the insurance exchange program during the Obama administration.
Trump’s biggest weapon, by far, is refusing to reimburse insurance companies for billions of dollars in payments the law requires them to make to help policyholders with incomes up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level (about $30,015 for an individual and $61,500 for a family of four) afford their deductibles and other out-of-pocket payments. These “cost-sharing subsidies” are the subject of an ongoing lawsuit, and Trump can effectively end them at any time by dropping the suit.
Meanwhile, major insurance companies like Aetna and Humana have already announced that they won’t participate in the health exchange market for 2018.
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