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Some health insurance experts say President Donald Trump's decision to end the subsidies of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) can have a significant impact in Houston.
The subsidies known as cost-sharing, which allow insurers to offer low deductibles and premiums, will be eliminated.
The White House says President Trump is ending the subsidies because they were not formally appropriated by Congress.
Ken Janda, president and CEO of the non-profit Community Health Choice, estimates there are about 200,000 people in the Houston area who benefit from the subsidies.
Janda tells Houston Matters that insurance companies that provide care through the ACA, commonly referred to as Obamacare, will have to raise rates between 10 and 15 percent, and the middle class will carry most of the burden.
"It’s those people that have very little premium subsidy, or no premium subsidy, that will actually be the most impacted. The actual low income people who get the cost sharing reductions will still get them, it’s just that somebody else rather than the federal government is going to have to pay for it," says Janda.
Janda also thinks the number of people in the Houston region without insurance will go up and that could cause a domino effect because hospitals and doctors will have to provide more health care that is not paid for, so they might have to increase their prices.