Obamacare Cost-Sharing Subsidies Will Not Be Part of the Deal Republicans Make to Keep Democrats From Shutting the Government Down, Ryan Claims

That's a deal that only a Democrat could offer to a Republican.

In exchange for you continuing funding Obamacare, we'll allow you the benefit of also being permitted to continue funding Planned Parenthood.

We are always bargaining from a position of weakness. Never strength. Just this cramped posture of a beaten boy who rolls up into a ball covering his head and crying "Uncle."

And by the way, I assume this is a negotiating position and when the Democrats shut down the government, we'll give in on some cost-sharing subsidies for Obamacare.

John Sexton explains what cost-sharing subsidies are: Direct payments to insurance companies

Cost-sharing reduction payments are separate from the subsidies used to lower the cost of insurance premiums for people buying Obamacare plans on the exchanges (those who make under 400% of the federal poverty line). CSRs are additional payments made directly to insurers to lower out-of-pocket costs including copayments and annual deductibles. However, the way the law is written means that insurers must discount those items for people at the low end of the income scale whether or not they are receiving the money to cover it from the federal government. So if the CSRs are cut off, as Democrats worry the Trump administration made decide to do, insurers will be losing, even more on the exchanges than they already are.

Insurers are mandated to offer discounts to the poor, Sexton reports, so the cost-sharing subsidies are really just a gimmicky rigged game to try to disguise the fact that yes, you are subsidizing other people for their insurance. The government taxes you, the government orders insurers to lower costs for the poor, the government taxes you more and gives some money to the insurers.

Without the subsidies, the insurance companies will lose money even faster.

posted by Ace at 06:34 PM

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