Washington, D.C. — The Trump administration’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, issued new rules for insurers taking part in the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, that would reverse many of the ACA’s consumer protections. The new rule reads like an insurance industry wish list and is proof that the industry and the administration are working hand in hand behind closed doors to cut benefits and kick the most vulnerable consumers off their plans.
The Center for American Progress has released a column today looking at some of the ways in which the insurance lobby and the Trump administration will sell out patients who rely on affordable health care with good coverage in order to return to the pre-ACA days of quarantined pools for the sick, denied coverage, and increased cost sharing and deductibles.
“While the ACA repeal effort flounders amid in-fighting and the untenable political reality of denying health care coverage for millions of people,” said Maura Calsyn, CAP Managing Director of Health Policy and co-author of the column, “the insurance lobby is hard at work making sure that the Trump administration does its bidding to undo some of the most important consumer protections in the law. High-risk pools for the sick, large increases to premiums based on age, coverage ‘flexibility’ for insurers to discriminate against older Americans and those with specific medical needs, and attacking user fees for access to the marketplaces are all top insurance industry priorities. President Trump and the congressional GOP are preparing to implement them all.”
The ACA brought millions of new customers to the insurance market but also came with important consumer protections that the insurance industry opposes. The Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress appear willing to undo those protections in order to give insurers carte blanche to reduce coverage, jack up premiums, and cut some of the costs they didn’t have before the ACA tamed the Wild West of health insurance.
Click here to read the column.
For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, contact Tom Caiazza at [email protected] or 202.481.7141.