Baldwin calls on Trump to clarify position on insurer payments

Senator Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., is asking President Donald Trump to clarify his position on the future of payments to insurers that help reduce healthcare costs for lower-income consumers.

Baldwin and 13 other senators said the clarification on cost-sharing reduction payments could help restore certainty in the healthcare marketplace. “Compounding uncertainty in the insurance market” could lead to increasing premiums, they warned.

“Let there be no doubt, you cannot keep your promise to lower costs for Americans while you continue to threaten ending the cost-sharing reduction program and work to advance partisan legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act,” the senators wrote.

The payments are currently being challenged by the House, which filed a lawsuit questioning their constitutionality under President Barack Obama’s administration.

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated in April that premiums could rise 17 percent for benchmark silver plans for 40-year-old Wisconsinites if the payments go away.