That Premera rate decrease in Alaska? It might just hold

By
Suzanne Downing
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On Thursday, President Donald Trump cut off the subsidies for Obamacare health insurance companies.
Immediately.
It’s unconstitutional for him to pay them, he said. Just because Barack Obama paid them, that doesn’t make it legal.
Critics said he is trying to sabotage Obamacare, and that he has paid the subsidies for the several months that he has been president, so they ask why he is stopping now.
The answer is likely that Congress didn’t act on reforming the law that has damaged many Americans, so he’s acting.
APPROPRIATING AUTHORITY
For those who say Trump is authoritarian, they’ll need to find another line of attack, for he has actually trimmed the sails of the authority illegally grabbed by President Obama to appropriate without the approval of Congress.
Trump is saying the presidency does not have that constitutional authority.  Only Congress has the power of appropriation.
(As a side note, this may come back to bite him if he ever wants to pay for a border wall along Mexico; he’ll need Congress to approve the funding.)
In the language of the Affordable Care Act, there is no appropriation made for the cost-sharing payments that reimburse insurance companies for the discounts they must give to low-income enrollees.
The Trump Administration, by ending the subsidies to insurance companies, brought the balance between the branches of government.
Last year, a federal judge ruled that Obama had exceeded presidential authority by sending over $7 billion in annual subsidies to health insurance companies. U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia agreed with the U.S. House of Representatives, which had sued over Obama paying the subsidies even after Congress had rejected the administration’s request in 2014.

Collyer wrote that for subsidy payments to be constitutional, Congress would have to approve annual appropriations.

The question is whether the subsidies can be funded through a permanent appropriation, as argued by Obama. “It cannot,” Collyer wrote.

Trump is agreeing with Judge Collyer, that without an annual appropriation, the subsidies have been illegal for years.

“We will discontinue these payments immediately,” said acting HHS Secretary Eric Hargan on Thursday.

On Twitter, Trump sent the message: “The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped. Dems should call me to fix!”

HOW IT IMPACTS ALASKA
How will that affect Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield, the only insurer offering policies on Alaska’s individual health insurance market? When it filed for a 22 percent decrease for purchasers next year, Premera already assumed the subsidies would end.

PREMERA BOOKED PROFITS ON ALASKA

For the first quarter of 2017 according to Axios, Premera made $27 million in profit. Some $55 million in State money props up Premera in Alaska, covering the costs of the most expensive patients through a unique state-funded reinsurance program. Last year, the nonprofit company made $18 million in profit on Alaska Obamacare enrollees, but it has suffered losses in prior years.