Congress is responding. Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray, the chairman and ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, announced on Tuesday that they had reached a deal on legislation that would undo the president’s order and bring back the subsidies.
But now it looks as if Obamacare markets won’t face wholesale devastation, regardless of whether that legislation passes. In 2018, at least, insurers may be made whole and consumers protected — even without the subsidies.
How could that be? The details are complicated, but the crux is that insurers and state regulators worked together to find a way to funnel more federal money into the Obamacare insurance markets.
The insurer-regulator hack will mean that navigating the Obamacare marketplace will be more complicated for consumers (more on that later). And the change will cost taxpayers more money — perhaps $21 billion more in 2018 alone. But, in the end, most customers will be unharmed by the president’s decision, and a substantial fraction will be better off, able to buy plans for about the same price they pay now, yet with lower deductibles.
