"Refusing to make the Cost Sharing Reduction payments has no purpose but to hurt millions of people, and manufacture a crisis," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.
Earlier in the day, hospital, physician and insurance industry groups sent a letter urging the president and congressional leaders to maintain the subsidies for this year and next, calling it the most "critical action" to stabilize the individual market.
"Analysts estimate that loss of CSR funding alone would increase premiums for all consumers — both on and off the exchange — by at least 15 percent," the group said in the letter, adding, "Hardworking taxpayers will pay more, as premiums grow and tax credits for low-income families increase, than if CSRs are funded."
The renewed uncertainty over CSRs comes at a key moment for insurers. Initial 2018 rate submissions are due in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia in the week after Easter.
"If I were a carrier right now, I guess I would be thinking about... two sets of rates. If I were only allowed to submit one set of rates, I guess I would submit the most conservative one," said Katherine Hempstead, a senior advisor at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
In the spring of 2015, some states allowed insurers to submit two sets of rates, when the Supreme Court was deciding the legality of Obamacare tax credits in the King v. Burwell case. So far this spring, while the Trump administration has delayed the federal deadline for rates on healthcare.gov until June, individual states have not indicated whether they`ll allow contingency bidding.
"I fell like people will try to serve (the individual) market … but the question is what part of the market do carriers think they have the best chance of serving, depending on how much public money there`s going to be in the market," said Hempstead.
0 comments:
Post a Comment