Ahead of Mike Pence’s visit to Tennessee today, Tennesseans should know that Donald Trump and Pence’s threat to sabotage the country’s health insurance markets by withholding cost sharing reductions (CSRs) – federal payments that health insurance companies rely on to keep coverage affordable – would devastate some of our country’s most vulnerable communities and directly impact millions of Americans who could see their premiums by double digits. The mere suggestion to stop these federal payments has already created major uncertainty in the nation’s insurance market, causing insurers to raise premiums or leave markets entirely.

Insurance companies in Tennessee have proposed increasing the average cost for individual plans by as much as 42% percent.

CSR payments help keep coverage affordable for more than 118,000 Tennesseans, which is 59% percent of the total marketplace enrollees in Tennessee.

BACKGROUND

Axios Map: Who loses if Trump cuts off health insurer payments

“We could get a decision from Trump today on whether the administration will keep paying insurers for their cost-sharing reduction subsidies to low-income people. A few things to keep in mind if he stops the payments:

“Insurers have to keep providing the subsidies anyway — they just won't be reimbursed. That's why they'd respond by raising premiums for next year by as much as another 20%.”

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