Two insurers selling plans on the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace in Arizona will not raise their rates for next year, despite President Donald Trump’s decision to cut off key subsidies. Neither Blue Cross Blue Shield nor Health Net intend to redo the rates they filed with the state; however, the situation could change dramatically after 2018. In recent years, Arizona has struggled to keep insurers from exiting the marketplace.
For months, Trump had been threatening to stop paying what’s known as cost-sharing reductions payments, which go to insurers and lower the cost of care for low-income people enrolled in ACA plans, and last week he followed through on his promise.
Will this put an end to health care subsidies?
The Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the federal government must provide tax credits that help middle-income consumers by reducing the cost of premiums. If you are eligible for these discounts, you will still get them because insurers are required by law to offer them. The cut ultimately hurts insurers, and the impact will be felt in other ways as insurers raise premiums or decide to exit the market.
“They could say we are not going to participate,” said Allen Gjersvig with the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers, which helps enroll people in the marketplace.
Gjersvig calls the move “active calculated sabotage,” especially when you look at it in conjunction with Trump’s executive order, which is expected to siphon off healthy people from the ACA marketplace.
“The promises of a better health plan are simply not true,” he said.
Not everyone agrees. Arizona Republican Congressman Andy Biggs said Trump “is doing everything possible to save Americans from crippling health care costs and decreasing quality of care.”