Yesterday’s Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis showed that if President Trump cancels Cost-Sharing Reductions (CSRs) on Marketplace plans, like he has been threatening to do for months, he would be directly responsible for harm to millions of Americans, including Illinois residents. The nonpartisan CBO report shows that by cutting off CSR payments, Trump would force premiums to increase by 20% next year and 25% by 2020 and increase costs to the taxpayer by nearly $200 billion over ten years.

This is sabotage, plain and simple, by the Trump administration. The CBO report also showed that the mere threat of Trump sabotage is already increasing premiums for next year. We’ve already seen the impact of this threat in Illinois: in preliminary filings, insurers on the Illinois Marketplace have assumed that CSR payments will not be made in full during 2018 and have raised proposed premiums dramatically in response.

We call on President Trump to stop playing politics with our health care and give assurances that the CSR payments will be paid this year.

We call on our Members of Congress to make a permanent, mandatory appropriation that ensures full funding of CSR payments. This is the best way to bring real stability to the marketplaces and erase uncertainty on this issue for the future.

We call on Gov. Rauner and the Illinois Department of Insurance (DOI) to take the steps necessary NOW to protect 2018 Marketplace consumers so they do NOT bear the weight of these capricious decisions by our President. Our recent letter to DOI outlines the four steps they could take to protect Marketplace consumers before it’s too late.