Cuts off ACA cost-sharing payments; CBO projects 20% premium rise and 1 million more uninsured

The White House announced on the night of October 12 that it would immediately stop the Affordable Care Act's cost-sharing reduction payments, roughly $7 billion annually that reimbursed insurers for lowering deductibles and co-pays for about 7 million low-income enrollees, asserting the payments lacked a congressional appropriation. The Congressional Budget Office had projected that ending the payments would raise benchmark premiums about 20 percent, leave 1 million more people uninsured, and add $194 billion to the deficit over a decade. The move came hours after an executive order loosening insurance rules that ACA advocates said would destabilize the individual markets. The next morning Trump tweeted that subsidy payments had stopped, framing the cutoff as leverage.