U.S. President Donald Trump will hurt low-income Americans by doing away with Obamacare subsidies and make it harder for him to engage in bipartisan talks with Democrats as Congress edges toward a possible government shutdown, lawmakers said on Sunday.
The White House has announced that the Republican administration will stop paying billions of dollars to insurers to help low-income consumers meet out-of-pocket medical expenses, as part of the president's step-by-step effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature health care law.
The expected loss of cost-sharing subsidies, estimated to be worth $7 billion this year and $10 billion in 2018, has prompted worries about insurance market chaos and undermined the prices of insurer and hospital company shares.