A thread on @NYGovCuomo announcement today. He directed his own insurance chief to ignore rate request increases tied to the individual mandate repeal. This is damaging to the market. Cuomo is a supporter of the ACA but Trump couldn’t do a better job of hurting NY if he...
tried. Why? B/c the mandate is already gone and Cuomo is just saying NY insurers should pretend it isn’t. The other problem here is that NY budgeted a 22.4 percent increase in the benchmark silver plan. That money brings in federal revenue through the EP (it’s pegged to APTC) 2/
Perhaps they will walk it back – and say Cuomo really just meant insurers shouldn’t profit off of Trump’s moves. That allows them to save face w/o too much damage done. But it’s not at all what Cuomo said today. 4/
For those interested – the EP funding works like this. The Essential Plan is funded by capturing what its participants would have received in subsidies to buy health insurance on the indiv. market. The higher insurance plans cost the higher the subsidies the more the state 5/
receives. It budgeted so much this year that it actually would capture more than it was going to pay insurers to provide insurance on the Essential Plan. That surplus funded Medicaid programs. But if the rates are lower than projected the money isn’t there. 6/
Wrote about it all in greater detail for our pro subscribers subscriber.politicopro.com/states/new-yor… but would love to hear what people like @bjdickmayhew @charles_gaba think. Twitter thread over. 7/
