President Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon on Saturday said Trump ended cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments, which subsidize insurers for keeping out-of-pocket costs down for low-income individuals, to “blow up” Obamacare.
“Gonna blow that thing up,” he said in a speech at the Values Voter Summit. “Gonna blow those exchanges up, right?”
The White House on Thursday night claimed it was ending the payments, a blatant move to sabotage Obamacare, because former President Barack Obama’s administration “overstepped the legal boundaries drawn by our Constitution” by making the payments.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in August that ending CSR payments would drive up premiums for those who benefit from the subsidies by 20 percent by 2018 and 25 percent by 2020.
