The administration’s refusal to guarantee payment of subsidies to health insurance companies, the murky outlook for the Affordable Care Act in Congress
and doubts about enforcement of the mandate for most people to have insurance are driving up insurance prices for 2018, insurers say in rate requests filed with state officials.
“The Trump administration is paying the subsidies,
but is trickling them out one month at a time,” as part of a “very cunning’’ strategy to undermine the health care law, said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut
“We are forecasting that the individual market will continue to shrink and
that those individuals with greater health care needs will be the most likely to purchase and retain their coverage,” while “healthy members are more likely to drop coverage,” Anthem said in its Connecticut rate request.
