\n The White House has postponed its rollout of a new proposal to address health care costs aimed at averting a spike in premiums driven by the expiration of key Affordable Care Act subsidies, a White House official said.\n <\/p>\n
\n President Donald Trump was originally expected to unveil the plan on Monday, but now that is not happening. The official did not provide a reason for the delay.\n <\/p>\n
\n This shifting timeline comes as Trump seeks to fulfill his vow to deliver a better alternative to the enhanced ACA subsidies relied on by nearly 22 million people and comes after Democrats rejected measures to reopen the shuttered government<\/a> for more than a month over their demand for a clean extension of those payments.\n <\/p>\n \n Senate Republicans agreed to hold a mid-December vote on extending the enhanced subsidies, which are set to lapse at year\u2019s end, in exchange for extending government funding through January, spurring the effort by Trump and his aides to develop their own competing proposal. The beefed-up assistance was originally passed in 2021 as part of a Biden administration Covid-19 relief package and has helped drive a record 24 million people to sign up for coverage this year.\n <\/p>\n \n If the subsidies expire, the premiums people pay are expected to more than double next year, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group. Plus, an estimated 2 million more people will be uninsured next year, the Congressional Budget Office found.\n <\/p>\n \n Democrats are already planning to use that predicted fallout against the GOP in next year\u2019s midterm elections, hoping it will prove as effective as it did in the 2018 midterms, when Republicans lost control of the House in part because of their efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act the year before.\n <\/p>\n \n The administration\u2019s proposal is not final, and the timing and content could still change, the people familiar with the matter said. In a statement, a White House official said that \u201cuntil President Trump makes an announcement himself, any reporting about the Administration\u2019s healthcare positions is mere speculation.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n However, the clock is ticking. Americans must sign up before December 15 to obtain coverage that starts January 1, and open enrollment ends on January 15. But those looking for 2026 policies may already have been scared away by the sticker shock, Obamacare advocates say.\n <\/p>\n \n MS NOW<\/a> first reported Trump\u2019s plan to announce his proposal as early as Monday.\n <\/p>\n \n Having the White House even entertain a plan that would extend the enhanced subsidies is a marked shift from Trump\u2019s recent pronouncements<\/a> that he would not support any proposal that would send federal funds to insurance companies.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe only healthcare I will support or approve is sending the money directly back to the people, with nothing going to the big, fat, rich insurance companies, who have made $trillions, and ripped off America long enough,\u201d Trump wrote in an all-caps message on Truth Social last week. \u201cThe people will be allowed to negotiate and buy their own, much better, insurance. Power to the People.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The framework under discussion envisions temporarily extending the ACA subsidies in some form, while incorporating a series of guardrails aimed at limiting their scope \u2014 potentially including new income limits and a requirement that all enrollees pay some form of premium.\n <\/p>\n \n Those provisions would address two of the main critiques that Republicans have about the enhanced subsidies, including that so-called zero premium plans drive fraudulent behavior. But it would also set up the ACA for a more fundamental overhaul down the road along the lines of what Trump has been demanding in recent weeks.\n <\/p>\n \n Republicans have wanted to restore an income cap to the premium subsidies, which had been 400% of the federal poverty level before the enhancement took effect in 2021. The elimination of that cap made Obamacare plans more affordable for the middle class, who will be among the hardest hit<\/a> if the beefed-up subsidies lapse at year\u2019s end.\n <\/p>\n