- Health Care Premiums for 2018 Set to Go Up by as Much as 50 Percent Marketplace by Dan Gorenstein and Jana Kasperkevic — Several states have announced rates for health insurance premiums on the Obamacare exchanges for 2018. Topping the list is Georgia, with rates that are 57 percent higher than last year, while Florida said some premiums will be 45 percent higher. Among the reasons for these increases is the uncertainty about the future of the Affordable Care Act. President Donald Trump has vowed to repeal and replace the health care law, which was passed under his predecessor President Barack Obama. Congress had repeatedly tried and failed to deliver on President Trump's promise. Insurers are raising premiums in the face of repeated threats from President Trump to stop funding so-called cost-sharing reductions, payments to insurers that cover out-of-pocket costs for some low-income consumers. Trump previously referred to these payments as "bailouts" for insurance companies and threatened to stop making the payments so as to "let Obamacare implode."
- Obamacare Sign-Up Challenge: Proving the Law is Not Dead Reuters by Yasmeen Abutaleb — More than two thousand miles away from the health care debate in Washington, President Donald Trump's threats to let Obamacare collapse are sowing confusion about its fate and dampening 2018 enrollment expectations. The uncertainty here in Arizona, echoed in interviews across the country, shows that even though they have not been able to repeal former President Barack Obama's signature health care law, the Republican effort to undermine it is gaining traction.…Knowing Republicans have vowed to keep trying until they succeed, consumers are increasingly hesitant to sign up, according to Reuters interviews with half a dozen enrollment groups, as well as industry experts and people looking to get insurance next year.