For Immediate Release: Friday, October 13, 2017
Contact: Lindsey Giostra, lindsey.giostra@
Failing to Repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in Congress, Trump Continues Relentless ACA Sabotage with End of Cost-Sharing Reduction Payments
Trump’s Action Will Raise Rates for Consumers and Destabilize the Market
Washington, DC — Ethan Rome and Margarida Jorge, co-directors of Health Care for America Now, issued the following statement in response to the announcement that President Trump is ending Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) payments.
“President Trump continues his vindictive assault on America’s health care. Having failed repeatedly to repeal the Affordable Care Act in Congress, he is now systematically working to dismantle the law. Ending Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) payments will raise rates for consumers and destabilize the individual health insurance market. It could cause insurers to flee the market, reducing the choices for consumers.
“This partisan, political act of sabotage is a direct attack on the millions of Americans who depend on the ACA for their health care. It’s part of the president’s campaign to administratively destroy the ACA by forcing premium increases, creating instability in the market, allowing the sale of junk insurance, actively interfering with the ability of consumers to sign up for coverage, and rolling back the guarantee of no-cost birth control for 55 million women.
“The last thing people should have to worry about is the president using his power to try and take away their health care in every possible way, but that’s exactly what’s happening. This move comes after issuing an executive order to let insurance companies discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions and sell junk insurance that doesn’t even provide basic coverage. He called that executive order ‘starting the process’ of ACA repeal.
“President Trump and Congressional Republicans need to face the fact that Americans have overwhelmingly rejected every attempt to repeal the ACA – as has the Senate. The answer is not taking executive action to destroy America’s health care, as the president seems to think. Instead, Congress needs to create a bipartisan plan to expand access to affordable care – and that starts by guaranteeing CSR payments, which are already included in the federal budget baseline. Enough is enough. It’s time to move forward.”
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Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is the national grassroots coalition that ran a $60 million five-and-a-half year campaign from 2008-2013 to pass, protect, and promote the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and protect Medicare and Medicaid. HCAN has come back together to fight the Republicans’ all-out effort to take away America’s health care and put people at the mercy of the health insurance companies again.
