President Trump wanted to hurt the Obamacare markets. The CBO says he's a success.
(CNN)Having failed to repeal Obamacare, President Donald Trump has said his strategy would be to let the health law "implode."
The Congressional Budget Office released a report Thursday that predicts Trump administration policies on Obamacare could help it on its way by leading to rising premiums and decreased enrollment in individual insurance markets over the next year.
Without calling the administration by name, the report names several policies the White House is pushing when explaining why average Obamacare premiums will increase substantially in 2018.
Uncertainty about cost-sharing subsidies the government pays to insurance companies -- which Trump has repeatedly said he may withhold -- are mentioned by the CBO's report as a significant driver of higher costs for the insured. The failure to promise these payments, along with reductions in advertising to inform people about the markets and employees who sign-up enrollees, can only "push enrollment down," the report says.
For 2026, the agencies' projection of the number of people obtaining subsidized coverage through the marketplaces is now 4 million smaller, and the projected number of uninsured people 3 million larger, than they were in CBO's March 2016 baseline projections.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/15/politics/20170915-cbo-insured-rate-uncertainty-premiums/index.html
AS THIS TURNS OUT -- it's not Sanders' or Conyers' Medicare For All that's a "curse on this country" -- it's DONALD J. TRUMP