U.S. President Donald Trump is gambling with American lives and will cause healthcare insurance premiums to skyrocket because of his decision to stop making cost-sharing reduction payments to insurance companies.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement on Friday: “Trump is gambling with American lives.
“By ending cost-sharing reduction subsidies, Trump will cause millions of Americans to face skyrocketing premiums, and a million people will lose their insurance entirely in 2018.”
U.S. media reports that cost-sharing reduction payments are worth an estimated seven billion dollars this year, and are given to insurance companies to reimburse them for the reductions they have to make on insurance costs for low-income individuals.
On Thursday, the White House announced the administration cannot “lawfully” make the cost-sharing reduction payments without an appropriation from Congress, and therefore will stop making the payments immediately.