title:  Trump Might Be About To Viciously Sabotage Healthcare, All To Try And Blame Obama (DETAILS)
text: We all know that President Donald Trump has wanted to blow up the  disaster  that is Obamacare for months now, however, his latest vision of bringing better healthcare to the people of America will actually stop billions of dollars in payments to health insurance companies that serve the poorest enrollees in the Affordable Care Act.If the President stops these payments, the entire health insurance system will be thrown into complete chaos, resulting in higher prices and fewer choices, if any, for consumers. Insurance companies would most likely increase the premiums of people using exchanges such as HealthCare.gov and Covered California, or stop selling to them altogether. Without Trump s payments, this aspect of healthcare will simply fall apart under his watch.The main issue behind all of this are cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments, reimbursements to health insurance companies made in order to reduce out-of-pocket costs such as deductibles and copayments for low-income customers. The House of Republicans filed a lawsuit in 2014, which is still pending, against the Obama administration questioning the legality of these payments. According to one White House official, the Trump administration has agreed to make the CSR payment for the month of May, but has made no commitment after that. As Donald Trump himself said about the healthcare system in January during a pre-inauguration speech, The easiest thing would be to let it implode in  17 and believe me, we d get pretty much whatever we wanted. In Trump s unhinged mind, ending what he has referred to as these  bailout payments  would force democrats to negotiate repealing the Affordable Care Act, however, they don t seem too keen on doing so, nor do the majority of the American people, with 60 percent stating that they don t approve of negotiations that disrupt insurance markets according to a survey conducted last month by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Three-quarters of those surveyed also believe the ACA should be kept running and two-thirds, including a majority of Republicans, believe that the repercussions of any further problems stemming from changes to healthcare in the USA sit squarely on President Trump s shoulders.Still, the President continues to ignore any advice given to him and remains in favor of cutting the payments. To be eligible for the cost reduction, enrollees in exchanges can earn up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level, which equals $30,015 per person. With the CSR payments being made by the government, deductibles of thousands of dollars are reduced to just hundreds for the consumer, a subsidy that has been received by seven million people between November 1, 2017, and January 31 this year, equating to 58 percent of exchange enrollees.Without the Trump administration making these CSR payments, insurers would need to raise premiums by an average of 19 percent on top of any other price increases next year.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images