In New Test for Obamacare, Iowa Seeks to Abandon Marketplace
With efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act dead in Congress for now, a critical test for the law’s future is playing out in one small, conservative-leaning state.

Neither C.M.S. nor the White House would comment on whether Mr. Trump had pushed for the application to be denied. A spokeswoman for C.M.S. said only that the plan remains under review.

In Des Moines on Tuesday, Gov. Kim Reynolds told reporters that her team was in constant contact with the White House and C.M.S. about the plan, including a call with Ms. Verma this week, trying “to get to yes.” She said the administration has been “very receptive” to the plan as a solution to the “unaffordable,” “unworkable” health law until it can be repealed.

Iowa calls its request a stopgap plan that would allow the state to opt out of the federal health insurance marketplace, HealthCare.gov, for 2018 and create a state-run system that its insurance commissioner says would lower premiums for the 72,000 Iowans who currently have Obamacare health plans, including 28,000 who earn too much to get subsidies to help with the cost.

But the cheaper premiums would come with a big trade-off: higher out-of-pocket costs. The only option for customers would be a plan with deductibles of $7,350 for a single person and $14,700 for a family. The proposal would also reallocate millions of federal dollars that the health law dedicates to lowering costs for people with modest incomes and use the money for premium assistance to those with higher incomes, no matter how much money they make.

The individual insurance market is particularly fragile in Iowa, partly because the state has allowed tens of thousands of people to keep old plans that do not meet the health law’s standards. Aetna and Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield, the state’s most popular insurer, are both withdrawing at the end of the year. The only insurer planning to remain, Medica, is seeking premium increases that average 56 percent, blaming Mr. Trump’s ongoing threats to stop paying subsidies known as cost-sharing reductions that lower many people’s deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs. Wellmark has said it will stay if the stopgap plan is approved.