Gruber on Health-Care Premiums: Trump and the Republicans Blew up the Market

EXCERPT:

MELVIN: “Jonathan, I want to follow up on something you just said there, why -- why are premiums higher under this administration than they would have been under another, do you think?”
GRUBER: “Absolutely critical to recognize that insurers were facing a new market here. One they weren’t sure how to deal with. And what insurers don’t like uncertainty. What Trump has done and the Republicans have done is injected uncertainty into this market in a way that insurers said, look, I don’t want to be a part of this. I've got plenty of money to make elsewhere. You have essentially made my life uncertain and difficult. I don’t want to be part of this market. And they’ve exited. Insurers said before President Trump was elected, that the market was stabilized and they were excited to participate in it. And basically the Trump and the Republicans had blown that up. So you have a system which has had high and rising premiums. Now, to be clear, fortunately because of the structure of the Affordable Care Act, most people in the exchanges pay a premium that’s a fixed percent of their income. So these rising premiums had not affected them. They can be in the exchange and millions of Americans have benefited. What they've done is just raised costs for the government.”