Trump's latest tantrum will hurt hundreds of thousands of people. Here's how.

[DonViejo]

By Greg Sargent May 26 at 11:13 AM

We now have our first clear evidence that President Trump’s threats to blow up Obamacare — whether or not he actually intends to make good on them — are going to hurt a lot of people here in the real world. In Trump’s mind, these threats are supposed to force Democrats to make a deal on repeal, but minimal logic reveals that this is extremely far-fetched — meaning the only impact his threats will likely have is a destructive one, for no evident purpose whatsoever.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina has announced that it intends to try to raise premiums by 22.9 percent next year. The company says it would have tried to raise them by only 8.8 percent, but it is going for the larger increase because the Trump administration has not said whether it will continue paying the law’s so-called “cost-sharing reductions” (CSRs) to insurance companies, which subsidize out-of-pocket costs for lower-income people who get insurance on the individual markets. Democrats in Congress want to appropriate money to cover these subsidies, but Republicans have not done so.

In an interview with me this morning, Brad Wilson, the president and chief executive of Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina, said flat-out that the failure of the Trump administration and Congress to guarantee that these subsidies will continue is why rates are going to soar for hundreds of thousands of people in his state.

“The failure of the administration and the House to bring certainty and clarity by funding CSRs has caused our company to file a 22.9 percent premium increase, rather than one that is materially lower,” Wilson told me. “That will impact hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians.” The company says it has approximately half a million customers getting individual insurance via Obamacare.

“We filed a 22.9 rate increase for 2018 based on the assumption that the CSRs will not be in place,” Wilson also said. “The rate increase would be 8.8 percent if the CSRs were guaranteed for 2018. Because they are not, the rate is 22.9 percent.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/05/26/trumps-latest-tantrum-will-hurt-hundreds-of-thousands-of-people-heres-how/?utm_term=.66760c988e67

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Hurt hell, they want to kill non trump non GOP voters. And some of their own voters too.

We need to get that through our thick, liberal, decent person heads, and wake up to the reality these people are not decent, no sir.