GOP Obamacare sabotage continues: The Washington Post

Another week, another insurance company deserting patients in a wide swath of the country. Last Tuesday, Anthem announced it would pull out of the Obamacare marketplace in Ohio, potentially leaving individual insurance-buyers in about a fifth of the state’s counties without Affordable Care Act coverage to purchase,” the editorial board of The Washington Post writes. The news came after insurers in various other states announced or threatened market exits or big rate hikes over the past several weeks. Are these moves more evidence that Obamacare is fundamentally unworkable? Hardly. Of greedy insurance companies callously disregarding their customers’ health? Not that either. Anthem explained clearly what is responsible for its retreat: Republican sabotage of the health-care system. The Trump administration has been serially unclear about whether it will keep funding a crucial subsidy program, known as cost-sharing reductions . Without them, insurers would have to jack up premiums to cover their costs or leave markets that would become deeply unprofitable to them. Just as experts and industry officials predicted, insurance companies have done both as the uncertainty about these subsidies has grown. Editorial board, “The GOP’s Obamacare sabotage continues,” The Washington Post.