If insurers flee the marketplaces because the federal government stopped making cost-sharing reduction payments, premiums on the most popular plans on Affordable Care Act exchanges could spike as much as 37 percent, and the number of uninsured Americans could increase by 9.4 million in 2018, according to a report by the Urban Institute, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The fate of CSR payments is currently being decided on a month-to-month basis. The Trump administration and the House of Representatives have requested delays on the hearing of the House’s 2016 lawsuit against the former Obama administration over the CSRs, arguing that the Treasury could not reimburse insurers for these subsidies because the funds had not been explicitly appropriated by Congress.
“The federal government is now paying the insurer reimbursements one month at a time with no commitment to continue,” the study says. “Congress could appropriate funds to make the payments and end the uncertainty, but so far it has not exercised this power.”
Recommended For You
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Katie Kuehner-Hebert
Katie Kuehner-Hebert is a freelance writer based in Running Springs, Calif. She has more than three decades of journalism experience, with particular expertise in employee benefits and other human resource topics.
