Tax Deadline Still Means Health Insurance Questions

First came word that Trump had scrapped his original tax plan and would be starting again from square one, meaning there's little hope the administration will hit the August deadline that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin set for himself. So the only real change that's been made so far is that the IRS has said that they wouldn't send your return back if you didn't check that box saying whether or not you had health insurance. Congress needs to act to fund the cost-sharing subsidies, however, she said.

For some reason, surrogates for President Donald Trump continue to use "alternative facts" to make their arguments. Because of how complicated Cross's medical needs are, the family bought two plans a year ago, outside of the Affordable Care Act exchanges. So the administration is trying to keep the existing system going temporarily as it pursues a total remake.

Despite efforts to rekindle repeal talks, insurers have remained largely focused on whether payments embedded in the law, called cost-sharing reductions, are going to continue in 2018. These are separate from the better-known so-called premium subsidies that most customers receive. The payments - estimated to add up to $7 billion this year by the Congressional Budget Office - allow lower-income people to buy plans with smaller deductibles and copays.

Under the final rule, people who are in arrears in paying premiums must make up their payments before enrolling for the following year to issuers that are in the same corporate group.

In a Wall Street Journal interview this week, Trump raised the possibility of shutting off the money if Democrats won't bargain on health care. I don't want people to get hurt....

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California called that an "appalling threat".

Shortening the sign-up period for 2018 by half, lasting from November 1 to December 15. Additionally, the open enrollment period was cut in half. "In particular, some issuers have cited special enrollment periods and grace periods as potential sources of adverse selection that have contributed to this problem". They control the House, the Senate, the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the law.

"There are states where the insurance market is fragile right now and in need of some fix, but if the Trump administration creates uncertainty or takes steps to undermine the law, that could leave large swaths of the country without insurance available", said Larry Levitt, a senior adviser at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Whether these changes help convince insurers to stick around for 2018 remains to be seen.

Consumers likely won't know for certain what sort of choices they will have until late summer or early fall, a couple months before open enrollment begins.

This year saw premium increases averaging 25 percent for a standard plan in states served by HealthCare.gov. Many, if not most, of them need to be reconsidered.

Most communities will have competing insurers on their public marketplaces next year, but a growing number will be down to one, and some areas may face having none. Several major insurers, including Humana Inc and Aetna Inc, have announced plans to exit some state exchanges in 2018. CEO Joseph Swedish has said his company would not commit to participating next year. The ACHA also allowed insurers to increase the price of insurance for Americans over age 50 to up to 5 times what a younger American would pay.

On Wednesday, Trump said he was considering withholding cost-sharing reduction subsidies slated to go to health insurers to help cover out-of-pocket medical expenses for low-income Americans in a move to force Democrats to negotiate on a new healthcare bill.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the bill would reduce federal budget deficits by almost $50 billion over 10 years.

Shortly after withdrawing an unpopular bill that would have put the health coverage of 24 million Americans in jeopardy, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan declared that "Obamacare is the law of the land ... for the foreseeable future".