Stop the health care hysteria

Last week the Senate blocked a proposal by Republicans to repeal much of the the Affordable Care Act, but many people in the US worry Republicans in Congress remain determined to take away health care. It doesn't tell you how employer-sponsored health care works, effectively, so it's a health care program for people who buy their own health insurance, not employer-sponsored health insurance. Without the subsidies, health insurers would likely raise insurance premiums. The president has long threatened to cut the cost-sharing reduction payments.

"In the absence of the CSR, the rate increases could be astonishing", says Dr. Marc Harrison, CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, which operates nonprofit hospitals and clinics, and insures more than 800,000 people across Utah. At the same time, the legislation would have provided $50 billion in funding to help stabilize the insurance market and make it more competitive so that consumers could have access to better and more affordable health insurance policies. Trump and congressional Republicans have blasted the cost-sharing subsidies as insurer "bailouts".

Many insurance companies have warned that they may seek even higher premiums for the coming insurance season if Trump makes good on his threats.

"It would also destabilize the markets, drive up premiums, force insurers to get out of certain markets", he said. "The interpretation of whether there was funding for such payments was thoroughly reviewed during implementation of the Affordable Care Act by those in the Obama administration and sufficient legal authority was found", Elliot said.

The higher subsidies could cost the government as much as $2.3 billion in 2018, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's Larry Levitt.

The reason CSRs are in limbo at all is because House Republican who did not want Obamacare to succeed sued the administration, claiming the payments to insurers were illegal because they had not appropriated money for them.

Schneiderman said the federal appeals court judges do have the power to ultimately order that the subsidies have to be paid.