Update: President Trump has continued to hammer Obamacare...
ObamaCare is a broken mess. Piece by piece we will now begin the process of giving America the great HealthCare it deserves!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2017
* * *
As we detailed earlier, it was an early morning for a seemingly excited, insomniac Donald Trump, who shortly before 6am tweeted on the topic of the night, namely the late Thursday elimination of subsidies to health insurers, which took place just hours after the president signed an executive order to designed to draw people away from Obamacare coverage markets.
"The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped. Dems should call me to fix!"
The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped. Dems should call me to fix!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2017
As reported last night, late on Thursday, the Trump administration said it would immediately stop paying what are known as cost-sharing reduction, or CSR, subsidies. The payments, which have been a subject of legal dispute during the Obama administration, go to health insurers in the Affordable Care Act to help lower-income people with co-pays and other cost sharing. Without them, insurers have said they’ll dramatically raise premiums or pull out of the law’s state-based markets, as Bloomberg reports.
Ahead of the White House announcement, and given the disagreements over the payments including ongoing lawsuit questioning their legality, many health insurers had dramatically raised the premiums they planned to charge for next year in anticipation of not getting the funds. The payments are made monthly, and have been estimated at $7 billion in total this year. “Many, but not all, insurers assumed these payments would end and set 2018 premiums accordingly,” Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said by email. “Those that didn’t build this into their premiums may petition to adjust their rates or threaten to pull out of the marketplace. It seems like we’re in for a chaotic run up to the beginning of open enrollment.”
The White House said the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services both concluded that there is no appropriation for cost-sharing reduction payments to insurance companies under Obamacare.
“The bailout of insurance companies through these unlawful payments is yet another example of how the previous administration abused taxpayer dollars and skirted the law to prop up a broken system,” the White House said in the statement.
Separately, acting HHS Secretary Eric Hargan and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement that the payments will stop immediately, with no transition period. They next payments were due next week. “Congress has not appropriated money for CSRs, and we will discontinue these payments immediately,” the department said.
Democrats immediately slammed the decision: “Instead of working to lower health costs for Americans, it seems President Trump will singlehandedly hike Americans’ health premiums. It is a spiteful act of vast, pointless sabotage,” the Democrats said in a statement.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Paul Ryan backed the move. “Obamacare has proven itself to be a fatally flawed law, and the House will continue to work with the Trump administration to provide the American people a better system,” Ryan said in a statement.
And while Trump may (or may not be) hoping that Democrats will promptly reach out to "fix" the current unstable equilibrium, what he has done in effect is to own Obama's mess, as any subsequent surges in insurance premiums will now be "Trump's fault."
What is more apropos, however, is that having once again slammed the Democrats' most precious law, suddenly the spectre of a government shutdown, and failure to reach a long-term debt ceiling deal on December 8 when the current temporary arrangement runs out, is back front and center, along with the associated risks to various capital markets.
Love the risk and embrace entropy
I know too many Obama-zombies,
to count.
This is sure to trigger,
them all.
Rejoice!
Trump just shlonged Congress, and Obamacare. Chokepoint mentality.
It's not like he gave them ample opportunity to take handshake pictures and get "we brought it all together headlines".
Looking forward to watching libtard heads explode today.
Sabotage it ... blame it on everyone else ... he hasn't a clue what he's doing
What does all that winning start?
He's working on his campiagn promise, repeal obama care...you gotta do what you gotta do when the other pubs wont step up.
Campaign promise lulz ... like it'll be repealed on day 1? It'll be so easy? And he's got the best plan?
Obamacare left so many rules to be made up by the HHS director that 90% of it can be undone by executive order. The subsidies to the insurers is certainly something that should have been in House legislation, so odds are the subsidies won't stand up in court anyway.
So in your mind, if you ever stop doing CPR on a corpse, you murdered that person? Nice. Libtard logic. Obamacare doesn't work. It barely even exists as anything but a set of government give aways to Health Insurance providers, and laws that force people into expensive programs. Obama was a GD moron, and Obamacare was him shitting on the floor in public.
One word.....Venezuela!
You are all tards - yes, you are too. USA is populated with tards.
I almost never visit ZH anymore. It is now obviously part of the US corporate propaganda sphere. It used to be focused on the corruption, manipulation and crimes of the FIRE-sector. Now most of the articles are from known deep state puppets or about deep state controlled topics (everything from the swamp – including of course the swamp-creature Trump).
This article is just another example. The Democratic Party is controlled by the deep state – as is the Republican Party. And Trump with it. Obama-care should be called Romney-care. He (on behalf of his donors/controllers – i.e. including the insurance companies that are the only ones benefitting from the scheme) devised and implemented it first. Romney-care is forced participation in the Ponzi-scheme passing as a health system in US. It is – like all political activities in US – devised to enrich the ownership class/the capitalists.
And on this site all the Trumpards fall for it – they think there’re some sort of “left-wing” in US trying to create a society of equality. The Libtards are stupid, for sure. But at least they’re being lied to – they think the Democratic Party is somehow on “the average Joe” side and not (like the Republicans) bought and paid for by the ownership class. The Trumpards are stupid on a different level – Trump doesn’t even try and hide that he is for big business and big business only. You got to be a very special kind of tool to fall for this crap…
Can't wait for Nana Pelosi to come running out screeching into microphones about Trump putting ObamaCare in a wheelchair and rolling it off a cliff.
Well Nana, we have to roll it off the cliff...first...before we see it crash ;-)
She will just come out, babble some incoherent Shit and drift off! Call the pharmacy! More meds for her!
NPR will have more crying people on their show this morning I'm sure.
The other day they had a bunch of immigrants crying into the microphone.
Awww... Missed it...
Just as he did on the immigration issue, he gave Congress six months to come up with a plan to fix it or else go back to enforcing the letter of the law...
Sorry letter of what law? Deporations are down under Trump..... All he has done is make a little noise.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/07/17/immigration-arrests...
https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/05/under-trump-immigrants-...
Arrests of undocumented immigrants have increased by nearly 40 percent since Trump’s legislative crackdown.
Despite these new security measures, Homan told reporters that deportations have actually declined by 12 percent under the Trump administration. This is because more undocumented immigrants are being arrested in the interior of the country rather than along the border. As a result, they often face lengthy hearings in the nation’s immigration court system.
Maybe the Trump administration isn't gaming the numbers like the Obama admin did on EVERYTHING.
an end run by the prez while congress is out for pizza instead of getting shit done.
hopefully, another welfare tit drying out to puss drip.
ok.
swampite insurance lobby contributions just didn't payout for healthcare insurance companies.
moar viseral hate and demagoging of whity middle class coming from libtard msm.
now what?
are we expecting congress to act according to the reality of affordable healthcare without huge insurance companies gouging of costs?
the slate must be wiped clean of 100's of laws. the market has to implement client based healthcare determined by the actual health of the individual. preexisting condition clients have to be pooled in high risk pools and pay accordingly. simple shit maynard...
Let's watch as Healthare stocks contine their moonshot trajectory.
If you look for trouble, you eventually find it. Now Trump, in one fell swoop, is claiming responsibility for all the Obamacare rate hikes from now on. Unlike the posters here, most on Medicare, Republican politicians run for re-election. The Trump Circus rolls on.
You mean the Obamacare rate hikes to the 4 or 5 million remaining exchange customers who have pre-existing conditions, have no alternative options, and get their premiums paid by tax payers anyway? Meanwhile the other 6 million in the private market will be able to buy much cheaper plans, and co-pays and deductibles will likely go down.
Yeah, I'm sure Trump is sweating that.
Burn the whole system down Donnie!! That and get rid of your useless son-in-law and his tribe within your admin
Do you really think he will bite the hand that feeds him?
In the late seventies, Wilbur Ross (Trump's Secretary of
Commerce, who bailed him out on Taj Mahal in 1990)
began twenty-four years at the New York office of
Rothschild Inc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Ross
http://nypost.com/2016/11/25/icahn-ross-saved-trump-brand-from-taj-mahal...
Obama's 10 Trillion Dollar theft from the American people. The greatest robbery in the history of mankind. And it just keeps getting better.
How is it getting better?
Can't Top the Fed's (any central banks) robbery
this is one of the few things that Trump did right - no more subsidies will lead to more responsible market behaviour
This was a dumb move.
Premiums have more than doubled in my state over the past few years. People are just about to break.
Now Trump will be blamed for it.
One more year and it would've imploded on its own...
people understand the bullshit obamacare was, and this ends it quicker.
We don't have a year. Hedge accordingly.
Alot of us have been saying that for the past 8. No I think we have 5-10...
Surely you cant be serious.
He is serious. And stop calling him Shirley
Unless you are recieving Obamacare subsidies or have an uninsureable pre-existing condition, you should be thrilled with Trumps move. Everyone else will soon have multiple options for lower premiums. The good old fashion catastrophic coverage plans will be back for young and healthy people. The relative handful of self-paying customers that have been coerced into to buying Obamacare coverage because their personal "John Roberts Tax" penalties were punitive, will now skip out of the exchange pool altogether and buy a plan that they actually want to buy. Healthcare.gov will become the default infrastructure for administering states "high risk pools" because evetyone else will go somewhere else.
It's all good!
BURN. IT. DOWN.
The democrats never intended to work with Trump on long-term debt on December 8th anyway. So, no point in allowing the democrats to hold Obbamacare hostage by playing that card.
winning..I am laughing my ass off..notice how this came out of left field..NYT has held for his whole 1st year in office, he would never dare do this to ACA,,never..
where is a progessive to go?? first hillary was a shoe in for the election, now this??
In the infamous words of Crazy Uncle Joe: "This is a big fucking deal man!"
Damn, you’re seriously insane. Winning what? A century of enslavement?
US are lost. TPTB won. They successfully divided the plebs so there’s no serious opposition to the deep state (including their obvious puppet Mr. fiat-billionaire Trump).
There are no proposed policies that will challenge your owners.
The MIC-part of the deep state are happy with their promised record budget and continuing wars in the Middle East, growing/created tension in Asia/NK, Ukraine/Russia and South America (yes, the evil Empire has not giving up on destroying attempts at democracy in this region yet).
The FIRE-sector of the deep state is happy with continued QE, no imprisonment/indictment of obvious fraudsters and promised deregulation and tax-breaks. Plus, Trump uses the rising stock-prices as an illustration of his genius as a political leader (what a tool).
The deep state asset #1 is never mentioned: The FED.
The private prison complex is being sponsored more than ever – and are given a green light to their unethical kicking downwards (= going after the already marginalized, poor and disenfranchised).
The deep state have never (not even under the deep state pawn Obama) had more of its puppets in the administration: from Goldmanites to generals.
The police state is implemented and police now shoot, beat, steal from and harass people with impunity.
And you’re winning?
And no, I would not “rather have Hitlery”. Only a pawn would accept the choices put in front of him by his masters. The only thing that can save US is a full blown revolution. And you will be on the wrong side of that one.
Fedgov was GIVING, unvoted or appropriated, money to insurers?
How can I get some?
Now if he had the same creative destruction with the stock market, perhaps he could get something done on the economy....
Of course, that won't happen because a falling stock market disproportionately affects the wealthy, whereas HC turmoil disproportionately affects the middle class and poor.
Get it yet people?
Trump is far from our savior. He is funneling 100's of billions into the MIC and WS (neoconservatism) while being a fiscal conservative (disaster relief and HC) only in cases that adversely impact the poor and middle class.
hillary just go away..your aricept has worn off again,,and seizures are sure to follow..oh and bill says your cunt stinks like a week dead skunk
no, obamacare was just fueling higher costs for healthcare with all the bullshit higher copays and deduductables.. it screwed the middle class and the poor... it enabled a few freeloaders and screwed anyone that had to pay
the MIC garbage is him picking one side while he tries to go after others. If he picked no sides he would be dead
Get this: how the hell is this going to reign in Health Care inflation? It's not!
You think this is going to somehow get better??? We go from a shitty plan to no plan, and with corruption reigning in Washington, chances are the status quo largely remains.
Fool!
Euthanize the people who aren't healthy.
Why give them foodies but no doctor? I'll do it for $15.00 an hour. +Pension
Obama care is crap and doesn't cover anything -- for God's sake it a copy of a Mitt Romney medical care -- does anyone in their right mind think that Mitt Romney was going to do anything good to help people over insurance companies. It is a joke and to here the MSM talk about it is pathetic, they never ever allow people to tell the truth about what it really is -- crap insurance, that is a full blown give away to health insurance companies.
,
How many MSM people even know someone on Ovomit Care let alone experience it for themselves...hmmm?
President Trump is putting the legacy of the absolute worst President in American history, PLOTUS (Pathological Liar Of The United States) Barack Hussein Obama, in cement overshoes right before he dumps into deep water off the Atlantic Coast.