Silver Loading

A few days ago I warned Congressional Democrats that while I agree that appropriating CSR reimbursement payments at this point would be a net negative move thanks to the clever Silver Load/Silver Switcharoo workaround developed last year, there's one possible cloud surrounding that silver lining, so to speak: What if the Trump Administration were to attempt to put the kibosh on Silver Loading altogether?

I don't know the legality of such a move, mind you, but It has been thrown around the rumor mill of late, so I figured I should remind them to keep that possibility in mind.

Well, today I received some reassurance...

Azar Says He Is Not Aware Of Discussions On Blocking ‘Silver-Loading’ in 2019

I just did a light analysis of how many people would be helped or hurt by CSR funding in 2019 in Rhode Island, and concluded that at least 28% of exchange enrollees would see their premiums increase if CSR funding was restored, while only perhaps 2-3% would see their premiums drop.

It turns out that over the weekend, my colleague Xpostfactoid did a much deeper analysis of the same situation in Maryland:

So there you have the enrollment results of full-bore on-exchange silver-loading of CSR costs in one state. In all, 49,993 on-exchange enrollees with incomes up to 400% FPL chose plans other than silver. About 48,000 of them were subsidized. That's 31.2% of all enrollees, within striking distance of Aron-Dine's upper bound of 36% for all marketplace enrollees.

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