BUDGET/HEALTHCARE/OBAMACARE(ACA)/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Trump administration made contested payments to health insurers for the month of June, removing the possibility of an abrupt cutoff just as many insurers make decisions about coverage under the Affordable Care Act in 2018.
The fate of ‘cost-sharing reduction’ payments, which reimburse health plans for lowering copays and deductibles for millions of low-income people who get coverage under the 2010 law, often dubbed Obamacare, has been a running backdrop in the debate over Republicans’ bid to scrap that law. Senate GOP leaders intend to vote next week on legislation to repeal portions of the act.
Republicans say the payments are legally tenuous, and a federal court has backed their argument that Democrats failed to make an explicit appropriation for them in passing their health care law in 2010. Democrats counter that Republicans are trying to remove the payments to sabotage the already fragile insurance markets and make a case for their own bill.
President Donald Trump’s administration has made the payments, which are sent monthly to health insurers, since taking office. But Mr. Trump also has openly mulled stopping them as a way to force Democrats to bargain with him over spending deals or health care, and Democrats and insurers had grown increasingly concerned that he would do so over the summer.”
-Louise Radnofsky, “Trump Administration Makes ACA Payments to Health Insurers for June,” The Wall Street Journal online, June 20, 2017 04:44pm