Pennsylvania Obamacare rates expected to rise amid planned funding cuts
Hundreds of people march through downtown Los Angeles protesting President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, his predecessor’s signature health care law, Thursday, March 23, 2017. The demonstration came as U.S. congressional leaders postponed a vote on the American Health Care Act, which the White House hopes will replace Obamacare. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
The Trump administration said Thursday that it would end the Affordable Care Act’s cost-sharing reduction payments designed to help low-income Americans get health care, a move that experts say will throw the insurance exchange into turmoil.
In Pennsylvania, the state insurance department is still moving forward with its 2018 Obamacare enrollment, despite the uncertainty.
Spokesman Ron Ruman says the 426,000 Pennsylvanians who got insurance through healthcare.gov will still have the same five insurer options next year. However, they’re going to pay more.
Ruman declines to say how much more, ahead of next week’s official release of the 2018 rates. He says rate increases are tied to insurers’ uncertainty over whether the federal government will pay the cost sharing reduction.
FILE – In this July 24, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump speaks about healthcare in the Blue Room of the White House in Washington. People buying individual health care policies would face sharply higher premiums, and some may be left with no insurance options if President Donald Trump makes good on his threat to stop “Obamacare” payments to insurers, congressional experts said Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
The payments, which started under the Obama administration, had been continued by President Trump, despite his strong opposition to the ACA. But the subsidies had never been funded by Congress, and the White House on Thursday said since there was no appropriation for it, “the Government cannot lawfully make the cost-sharing reduction payments.”
If the government doesn’t pay the subsidy like it has in past years, Ruman says insurance companies would have to foot the bill.
“Where that will impact consumers, eventually, is that insurers will then add those costs onto their premium rates,” Ruman says.
It’s just one aspect of the uncertainty facing state agencies tasked with managing the Affordable Care Act exchange, as some in the industry expect another repeal and replace effort by Republicans next year.
