Health insurers lobbied the White House Tuesday asking that popular vote loser Donald Trump stop playing games with their bottom line (not to mention millions of people's lives). Trump has threatened to discontinue payments to insurers to help cover the costs of low-income customers. Sadly, it would appear that the insurers were unsuccessful in getting the Trump regime to care.
The insurers have been closely watching as President Trump and congressional Republicans and Democrats debate the future of those subsidies, known as cost-sharing reductions paid by the Obama administration that now go to the companies covering about seven million individuals to help lower deductibles and co-payments.
Insurers who attended Tuesday’s meeting with Seema Verma, the new Medicare administrator, “reiterated our most pressing concern: the instability in the individual market created by the uncertainty of funding,” according to a statement from America’s Health Insurance Plans, one of the main industry trade groups.
But Ms. Verma made no promises, according to accounts of the meeting, and indicated to the insurance executives that Congress would have to decide whether to appropriate the money.
Trump has continued to project his intention to blackmail Democrats into working with him on the issue, and a White House official basically confirmed that approach to the New York Times, telling them "that the president was leaning toward ending the subsidies, but was waiting to see how Democrats would respond when they return to Washington." What exactly he's asking the Democrats to do on this specifically he hasn't made clear. He hasn't offered any suggestions at all about what he might want in exchange. In fact, the threat he's made is to not make the payments and force Obamacare to fail in order to get the Democrats to capitulate to him after the fact.
Meanwhile, the pressure on congressional Republicans will get very real just as soon as they return to work in Washington next week. Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—which used to oppose Obamacare—is lobbying hard for the payments, joining pretty much every health industry group: America’s Health Insurance Plans, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Benefits Council, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and the Federation of American Hospitals. That's a lot of firepower, and these are groups with deep pockets—and long memories.