Insurers scramble after Trump suspends billions in ObamaCare payments

[left-of-center2012]

Source: The Hill

The Trump administration's abrupt suspension of billions of dollars in payments to ObamaCare insurers has prompted new warnings of rising premiums as health companies scramble to adjust.

Insurers are pressing the administration to resolve the issue and resume the payments, arguing that premiums will rise for ObamaCare enrollees if funding is cut off.

Democrats, meanwhile, are seizing on the unexpected action by characterizing it as another example of the administration sabotaging ObamaCare, a key Democratic message heading into the November midterm elections.

The flurry of activity is the result of a surprise announcement Saturday by the administration that it had suspended $10.4 billion in funding that is supposed to be paid to insurers to help them provide coverage to particularly sick and costly enrollees.


Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/396181-insurers-scramble-after-trump-suspends-billions-in-obamacare-payments

[lordsummerisle]

1. I'm suprised there isn't more outrage about this

or am I just missing it...?

[Xipe Totec]

3. Those most affected are too weak, feeble, dying or already dead. nt

[KY_EnviroGuy]

6. I think it's more likely they just have no voice.

That's the GOP way, we all know....go after the most vulnerable that have no voice with our media.......

[NanceGreggs]

5. The SCOTUS nominee ...

... has sucked up all the oxygen in the media for days. This story will probably gain traction over the next few days.

[BigmanPigman]

10. OH, I am extremely outraged!

I called all the senators and 150 congressmen over saving the ACA twice. Resistance works...the protests, the town Halls, sit ins, the calls and letters to everyone, etc. We have to do the exact same thing now as a country. The Dem midterm candidates can use this to defeat the GOP. Everyone wants the ACA now that the finally know it is the same thing as Obamacare (Fux Ruse did that). I don't think word about that issue has sunk in yet or maybe they are unaware of it due to Trump TV. We are resisting since it works...it saved a lot of the ACA by using the same methods to hound the Senators with calls, angry constituents, town halls, harassing them when they go out.

From Monday, July 9 until Friday, July 13, across the nation, we show up at Senate District Offices to demand our senators protect our democracy— our choice, our affordable health care, our rights— and #SaveSCOTUS.
GET THE TOOLKIT REGISTER EVENT SEARCH EVENTS
Enter your zip code to find a #SaveSCOTUS Senate District Office event near you. If you don't see one, register your own.
https://savescotus.indivisible.org/dailykos/?link_id=0&can_id=bfcadfa948ac07d9bf5b1038644acae5&source=email-timely-find-a-savescotus-event-near-you&email_referrer=email_382608&email_subject=timely-find-a-savescotus-event-near-you

[oasis]

13. +1

[IronLionZion]

12. Many people are overwhelmed at this point and exhausted

since every day there is something new dumped on us

[Hortensis]

14. Repubs are told ALL high premiums are Dems' fault.

With the midterm elections fast approaching, expect a major propaganda effort to convince voters they have to get Democrats out of office before they're ruined.

[Grassy Knoll]

2. Obamacare Was A Republican Idea That Worked....

...Can't Concede A Win To A Dem...No Matter What.

[Hortensis]

15. A MODERATE conservative idea they never implemented,

though. The people controlling the party were already far too conservative to accept it, and it was left to Democrats to make national healthcare a reality by building on it as something Americans across the spectrum could support.

It's not that the party is full of moderates who just can't concede a win to Democrats (though that last is certainly true ).

It's that the right-wing extremists controlling the GOP leadership are determined to destroy ALL big government programs. They tried very hard to keep the ACA from passing and have been working to destroy it ever since it did pass. This is just one of their latest swings of the ax.

[AlexSFCA]

4. where is their replacement plan

[progree]

7. It's the result of a federal judge's decision that the risk adjustment payments have been suspended

says the Department of Health and Human Services

Per CNN:

US District Court Judge Thomas Browning that the methodology used by the federal government was "arbitrary and capricious" and remanded it back to the agency, according to Lexis Legal News.

Per Jonathan Cohn in the Huffington Post:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obamacare-sabotage-risk-adjustment_us_5b40e39ae4b09e4a8b2d96cb

The ACA’s risk adjustment system has been the target of federal litigation because some insurers said it treated their plans unfairly. In one of those cases, a federal judge in New Mexico ruled that the system is flawed a decision, the administration says, that means the payments must stop for now.

But reacting to a lower court decision in that way is a highly unusual move, Nicholas Bagley, a University of Michigan law professor, told HuffPost on Saturday although he cautioned that he hadn’t seen any actual filings, so he couldn’t be sure exactly what the administration was thinking or doing.

Administrations don’t typically concede so much, so soon in the face of district court decisions, Bagley said. “Otherwise, a lone judge could throw an entire agency’s work into disarray,” he added.


... Risk adjustment doesn’t always work that well in practice. A 2015 New England Journal of Medicine study found evidence that insurers were “using benefit design to dissuade sicker people from choosing their plans,” even with the ACA’s risk adjustment program in place.

...

[moondust]

8. Attempted (mass) murder. n/t

[appalachiablue]

9. Brutal

[Achilleaze]

11. Republican TraitorCare Sucks

[PatSeg]

16. Like so many of Trump's outrageous actions,

it is upstaged in the media by other stories. I've watched TV news programs where barely two stories are covered in an hour, as if there is nothing else going on. This is an important story, hopefully they will manage to fit it in with all the Supreme Court Justice nominee coverage.