- On October 12, the Trump administration announced it would stop making cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers, because it lacked a constitutionally valid appropriation to do so—an action that restores Congress’ “power of the purse.”
- While some have proposed that Congress should appropriate funds for the payments, such action would effectively reward insurers’ prior risky behavior—assuming cost-sharing reductions would continue to be paid, even after a federal judge struck them down as unconstitutional—thereby perpetuating moral hazard.
- A better course of action is repealing the undermining regulations surrounding Obamacare, which necessitated the unconstitutional cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers in the first place.
Toward a More Well-Informed Citizenry
The 86th Texas Legislature sought to enhance public debt transparency through the creation of Voter Information Documents (VID). However, this instrument is not accurately providing debt amounts and needs reform. Key points: Governments are manipulating the VID methodology to deny voters accurate tax impact estimates. Many VIDs are dissimilar, making comparative analysis challenging. There is...