congressional Budget Office: Stopping Insurance Subsidies Would Hike Deficit by $194 Billion

https://goo.gl/RYfC65

Dropping the federally funded cost-sharing reduction (CSR) subsidies that health insurers on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance exchanges use to help low-income enrollees with out-of-pocket costs would increase the federal deficit by $194 billion over 10 years and cause premiums to increase by an average of 20%, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Tuesday.

"Because they would still be required to bear the costs of CSRs even without payments from the government, participating insurers would raise premiums of 'silver' plans to cover the costs," the report's authors wrote. "According to [CBO's] projections, for single policyholders, gross premiums (that is, before premium tax credits are accounted for) for silver plans offered through the marketplaces would, on average, rise by about 20 percent in 2018 relative to the amount in CBO's March 2016 baseline and rise slightly more in later years."


views