Congressional Budget Office accuses Trump administration policies of hurting ACA

health care congressional budget office report

A new report from the CBO predicts that uninsured American numbers will rise under President Trump.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released a report predicting that Trump’s health care policies will be to the detriment of the Affordable Care Act’s success. Despite the GOP’s efforts to overturn the ACA, the Trump Administration’s policies will foster rising premiums and falling enrollment in individual health insurance markets in 2018.

The report suggested that the President Donald Trump’s strategy is causing direct harm to health care.

Trump had said that his strategy would be to allow Obamacare to “implode.” However, the Congressional Budget Office report suggests that if the health care system struggles, it is in part due to the president’s own influence over it. Having been unsuccessful in repealing the Affordable Care Act, his policies will force Americans to have to pay more for coverage, leading fewer of them to purchase a plan, said the report.

To be clear, the report did not identify the Trump administration as a specific culprit. However, the report named a number of the Trump administration’s policies and intentions, blaming them for a substantial rise in health insurance premiums predicted for 2018.

The Congressional Budget Office called the strategies a significant driver for those higher insurance rates.

health care congressional budget office reportIt underscored that the uncertainty resulting from the failure to promise the continued subsidy payments forced insurers to have to raise their premiums in order to cover the potential that they will not receive federal payments. The CBO also said that the lack of advertising to educate Americans regarding the individual insurance markets will “push enrollment down,” said the report.

The CBO report showed 4 million person a reduction in the number of people with health insurance coverage supported by government subsidies by 2026. Moreover, the number of uninsured Americans by that year will be 3 million people greater than the baseline projection had indicated in March 2016.

This Congressional Budget Office report arrived on the heels of additional threats made by Trump to bring the subsidies to an end if GOP Senators are unable to come up with an Affordable Care Act repeal measure.

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