President Donald Trump appears poised to announce a two-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, due to expire at the end of December, while setting new limits on who is eligible to receive the tax credits, according to reports.
Without an extension of Covid-19-era Obamacare subsidies, insurance premiums for nearly 22 million American citizens threaten to more than double early next year, a point made repeatedly by Democrats during the recent 43-day government shutdown, who refused to sign a stopgap spending bill that did not address the problem.
The president could unveil his new proposal as early as Monday, according to MS NOW, presenting a new healthcare framework and calling on Congress to send a bill to the Oval Office for his signature as soon as possible.
Senate Republicans did promise to hold a vote on the matter by mid-December to a group of eight Democrats in the chamber as a condition of securing their support on a bill to end the shutdown earlier this month.
Trump’s plan will be called the “Healthcare Price Cuts Act,” according to White House officials cited by MS NOW, and would address the “surprise premium hikes” resulting from ACA subsidy expirations.
It would require recipients to make a minimum premium payment, according to Axios, and also eliminate the “zero-premium” subsidies currently offered under Obamacare to stop fraudulent “ghost beneficiaries” from exploiting the system – a Republican bugbear.
The plan is further understood to feature a deposit program that would incentivize people to buy lower-premium options on the ACA exchange.
Anyone who downgrades their coverage under the new proposals would see the difference in costs distributed to a “Health Savings Account” provided with taxpayer dollars, MS NOW reports.
“We believe healthcare is going to come down,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday before trailing an imminent announcement on tackling costs and acknowledging that the issue of affordability is becoming increasingly urgent as the holiday season approaches.
There is a clear desire for Washington to act on the ACA deadline, with a recent poll from the non-partisan healthcare research group KFF revealing that 74 percent of Americans want to see the subsidies extended, an opinion shared by 50 percent of Republicans specifically.
Trump will reportedly make his announcement at the White House in the presence of Dr. Mehmet Oz, his administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The president had previously expressed opposition to simply signing off on an extension of the current subsidies, arguing instead that the money involved should be allowed to bypass insurance companies and sent directly to consumers to shop for their own health coverage.
He suggested an act to that effect should be known as “Trumpcare” and claimed it would empower citizens and leave them feeling like entrepreneurs.
