{"id":11305,"date":"2017-05-16T15:53:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T15:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2017\/05\/16\/trump-refusal-to-bail-out-insurers-might-end-up-making-policies-cheaper\/"},"modified":"2017-05-16T15:53:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T15:53:00","slug":"trump-refusal-to-bail-out-insurers-might-end-up-making-policies-cheaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/trump-refusal-to-bail-out-insurers-might-end-up-making-policies-cheaper\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Refusal to 'Bail Out' Insurers Might End Up Making Policies Cheaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Kodjak<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n President Trump celebrated House passage of legislation to roll back the Affordable Care Act in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 4.<\/p>\n

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NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n

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NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n

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President Trump has been saying in recent weeks that the Affordable Care act, or Obamacare, is “dead.”<\/p>\n

So he’s threatened to cut off crucial payments to health insurance companies that help low-income customers pay day to day health care expenses.<\/p>\n

That plan, however, may just end up bringing more people into the Affordable Care Act insurance markets.<\/p>\n

An analysis <\/a>by the consulting firm Oliver Wyman shows that if the government stops paying for the subsidies that the lowest-income customers get on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the government would instead have to provide larger tax credits to more people.<\/p>\n

The result? Many more people could end up finding they can get insurance policies at little to no cost at all. And that “might also encourage some subsidy-eligible people who have not previously purchased plans to enroll,” the report concludes.<\/p>\n

“People can take that higher subsidy and buy any plan on the exchange that they want,” said Dianna Welch<\/a>, the Oliver Wyman actuary who co-wrote the report.<\/p>\n

To understand to how this could happen requires getting deep into some of the wonky details of how the Affordable Care Act works.<\/p>\n