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The Senate parliamentarian has given Republicans an impossible deadline for repealing the Affordable Care Act.
Health insurers are supposed to file their rate proposals for selling plans on the Affordable Care Act exchanges with states Tuesday, but the states are in total confusion, "struggling to make decisions about pricing and coverage amid uncertainty in federal health policy." It's all part of the Trump sabotage plan.
The upshot is confusion in what is typically an orderly, regimented regulatory process for reviewing insurance offerings that will go on sale to consumers on Nov. 1.
States are taking different approaches, based on their best guesses about what Congress and President Donald Trump’s administration might do regarding the health-law marketplaces, though several state regulators said in interviews that they are leaning toward approving hefty rate increases.
According to actuarial firm Milliman Inc., at least 32 states have requested that insurers prepare alternative premiums for different scenarios. Most of those states are still holding off on a final decision on which rates to choose.
“The uncertainty makes it very difficult to navigate, and it’s not going away,” said Eric A. Cioppa, superintendent of the Maine Bureau of Insurance.
The news that the administration has all but eliminated the federal government's outreach efforts to get new enrollees and re-enroll current customers could push up premium increases as much as the existing uncertainty about the administration's decision on continuing cost-sharing payments to insurers. This makes the job of state health regulators all the more complicated.
That's by design, of course. The more confusion (and the more difficulties the Trump administration can throw at Obamacare) the better, as far as they are concerned. Which puts Republican lawmakers on the spot. They'll be blamed in 2018 and 2020 for every person who loses health insurance because of this president.