By Rachel La Corte
The Associated Press
OLYMPIA — Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said President Donald Trump’s decision to immediately halt federal payments to insurers “is a devastating blow” to thousands of people in the state and threatens the stability of the individual health insurance market.
In a statement issued Friday, Kreidler said he is considering further action to challenge the decision “and protect consumers and our individual health insurance market.”
The White House says the government cannot legally continue to pay the so-called cost-sharing subsidies because they lack a formal authorization by Congress.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced late Thursday that the payments were to be discontinued “immediately,” and Trump took to Twitter on Friday morning to urge Democrats to make a deal, writing that “The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding.”
Halting the payments would trigger a spike in premiums for next year, unless Trump reverses course or Congress authorizes the money. The next payments are due around this coming Friday.
A spokeswoman for Kreidler said more than 330,000 people buy health insurance through the state’s individual market and more than 70,000 qualify for subsidies.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that premiums for a standard “silver” plan will increase by about 20 percent without the subsidies. Insurers can recover the cost-sharing money by raising premiums.
Consumers who qualify will still receive tax credits to help pay their premiums; however, millions of others buy individual health care policies without any financial assistance from the government and could face prohibitive increases.
Tara Lee, spokeswoman for Gov. Jay Inslee, said in an email that the governor views the administration’s efforts to dismantle the Obama-era law as a “deliberate and relentless sabotage of the personal health care of millions of Americans.”
“It will directly harm middle-class families by hiking their premiums, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs, while creating chaos and instability in the marketplace,” Lee wrote.
