The administration will not make the next payment to insurers, scheduled for Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) expressed optimism about chances for a deal with Republicans to continue the subsidy payments.
“We’re going to have a very good opportunity to get this done in a bipartisan way” during negotiations in December on broad federal spending legislation, “if we can’t get it done sooner,” Schumer told reporters.
Trump offered an invitation for Democratic leaders to come to the White House, while also lashing out at them. “We’ll negotiate some deal that’s good for everybody. But they’re always a bloc vote against everything. They’re like obstructionists,” Trump told reporters.
Insurer’s Stock Takes a Hit
Hospitals, doctors, health insurers, state insurance commissioners and patient advocates decried Trump’s move, saying consumers will ultimately pay the price. They called on Congress to appropriate the funds needed to keep up the subsidy payments.
Health insurers’ stocks fell on Friday. Centene Corp and Molina Healthcare both declined around 3%. Hospital shares also fell, with Tenet Healthcare down 5.5% and Community Health Systems down 3.8% in afternoon trading.
Trump, who as a candidate last year promised to roll back the law formally called the Affordable Care Act, received applause for his latest action during an appearance on Friday before a group of conservative voters.
“It’s step by step by step, and that was a very big step yesterday,” Trump said. “And one by one, it’s going to come down, and we’re going to have great healthcare in our country.”
Earlier on Twitter he called Obamacare “a broken mess” that is “imploding,” and referred to the “pet insurance companies” of Democrats.
Republicans for seven years had vowed to get rid of Obamacare, but deep intra-party divisions have scuttled their efforts to get legislation through the Senate, where they hold a slim majority.
Since taking office in January, Trump threatened many times to cut the subsidies. Health insurers that planned to stay in the Obamacare market prepared for the move in many states by submitting two sets of premium rates to regulators: with and without the subsidies.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners said the change would drive up premium costs for consumers by at least 12% to 15% in 2018 and cut more than $1 billion in payments to insurers for 2017.
The White House announced the cut-off just hours after Trump signed an order intended to allow insurers to sell lower-cost, bare-bones policies with limited benefits and consumer protections. Republicans have called Obamacare an unnecessary government intrusion into the American healthcare system. Democrats have said the law needs some fixes but noted that it had brought insurance to 20 million people.