Trump Tweets Approval After Health Care Stocks ‘Plunged’

It is unlike President Trump to cheer when stocks fall, but early on Saturday he did just that.

“Health insurance stocks, which have gone through the roof during the ObamaCare years, plunged yesterday after I ended their Dems windfall!” he tweeted.

On Thursday, the administration announced it would stop paying subsidies to health insurance companies that help cover costs for low-income people.

“That money is a subsidy for insurance companies,” Mr. Trump said on Friday. “Take a look at their stocks. Look where they are. They’re going through the roof.”

In another tweet on Saturday, Mr. Trump said he was “very proud” of an executive order he had signed Thursday. The order sought to increase competition among insurers, in large part by encouraging associations to offer less comprehensive plans and by allowing more short-term coverage.

The Congressional Budget Office has warned that stopping the subsidies is likely to raise insurance premiums, affect the stability of the health exchange markets set up under the law and, ultimately, add to the federal deficit.

On Friday, stocks for Centene, Molina and Anthem, insurers that have participated in state marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act, slumped by more than 3 percent. Health care providers were also affected. Shares in Acadia Healthcare declined by more than 3 percent and in Tenet Healthcare dropped by just over 5 percent.

While Mr. Trump appeared to celebrate this on Saturday, he has pointed to rising stocks as a sign of success in the past.

“It would be really nice if the Fake News media would report the virtually unprecedented Stock Market growth since election,” he tweeted on Wednesday. “Need tax cuts.”

On Friday, attorneys general in 18 states, plus the District of Columbia, announced a lawsuit to fight the administration’s decision to stop subsidy payments.

“Taking these legally required subsidies away from working families’ health plans and forcing them to choose between paying rent or their medical bills is completely reckless,” the California attorney general, Xavier Becerra, said in a statement on Friday. “This is sabotage, plain and simple.”

Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, called the scrapped subsidies “yet another reckless and cruel decision by the Trump administration” that would “drive up insurance prices and increase the number of uninsured.”