The insurance commissioner in Pennsylvania announced Monday that premiums for health insurance plans available through the Obamacare market place would rise by an average of 30.6 percent due to President Donald Trump’s decision last week to end subsidies to insurance companies.
“It is with great regret that I must announce approved rates that are substantially higher than what companies initially requested,” Acting Insurance Commissioner Jessica Altman said in a statement. “This is not the situation I hoped we would be in, but due to President Trump’s refusal to make cost-sharing reduction payments for 2018 and Congress’s inaction to appropriate funds, it is the reality that state regulators must face and the reason rate increases will be higher than they should be across the country.”
Pennsylvania officials had initially projected rates would increase by 7.6 percent on average before Trump decided to end payments to insurance companies that help insurers cover low-income Americans with significant health needs. The 30 percent rise in premiums will only hit silver level plans, per the Pennsylvania insurance department.
In her statement, Altman made it clear that Trump’s decision to end the cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments prompted the significant rate increase.
“The president’s deliberate action and Congress’s failure to appropriate these funds despite repeated requests is forcing large rate increases on consumers in Pennsylvania and around the country, but my department is doing what we can to help our consumers understand their options and hopefully shield them from these rate increases,” Altman said.
Trump’s decision last week to end the payments has caused premiums to rise in several states as insurers file for emergency rate hikes.
And der Furor thinks people won’t figure it out. He’s going to get a shock next November.
Trump: Hillary will not win in PA for sure now. Check Mate.
I had an interesting weekend—a friend had a birthday party and I was able to have group conversations in the central part of the state with a variety of people. One guy was a Senate-confirmed agency head under Obama, his brother is a farmer. Both are Democrats, but many of the farmer’s neighbors aren’t. He’s had trouble persuading them that Obama wasn’t coming for their guns. I’ll check and let you know what they think about this. When people are partisans and not really sophisticated about politics they can get it really wrong, but you’d be wrong yourself to think they’re stupid. Folks like that are often very savvy in some ways and sadly credulous in others. I think it’s more that in some things they’re free to see clearly, and in others they have very fixed ideas. Again, I’ll keep tabs on the farmer and his neighbors. If they’re shocked and dismayed by this, understand why and how it happened, and that’s reflected in national poll numbers, we may see something in a year or even sooner. Stay tuned, sports fans.
Well, if people want health insurance that much, they can always skip lunch or cancel their cell phone contracts…
/s
I recall during a 2008 Republican debates a question was asked to the 5 candidates about a hypothetical 30 year old with 2 kids. He became seriously ill and had no health insurance.
Someone in the audience shouted, “let him die!”
Not one of the Republicans flinched.