EDITORIAL: Trump is trying to kill Obamacare. Congress must stop him.
This craven political move is the latest from the
"What the president is doing is affecting the ability of vulnerable people to receive health care right now," Sen.
It is such a bad idea that bipartisan work in the
On Tuesday, to restart the payments, to restore funding to help people sign up for ACA insurance plans, and to make other tweaks to the ACA was announced. The compromise was negotiated by Sens.
President
"I strongly support the package because otherwise we will see chaos in the markets, and we are also going to see low-income people having difficulty in affording their out-of-pocket costs," Collins said Wednesday on
As Alexander and Murray look for co-sponsors for their plan, support from moderates like Collins should persuade both
The government payments to insurance companies, called cost-sharing reduction payments, encourage them to take on lower-income subscribers by lowering their out-of-pocket costs such as co-pays and deductibles.
Without the payments, insurance companies are expected to raise their rates by another 12 percent to 15 percent for 2018 for the individual market, according to , CEO of the
Eliminating these payments would raise insurance costs, leaving an additional 1 million people without insurance next year. It will also worsen the federal deficit by
In yet another effort to sabotage the ACA, the Trump administration for programs that encourage people to enroll in ACA plans by 90 percent. The enrollment period was cut in half and the website will be shut down for 12 hours every Sunday for maintenance. The Alexander-Murray compromise would restore some of the funding.
Efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act have failed. The responsible course is to make needed changes to the law without decimating it, which will leave millions of Americans without insurance and dramatically raise costs for those with insurance.
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