The Trump administration on Monday approved a request from Maine to set up a program to help prop up Obamacare insurers.
Maine is the second state in two days to get approval to set up a reinsurance program to help buttress losses from insurers. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved a similar request from Wisconsin on Sunday.
CMS said on Monday in a letter to the state that it will approve a reinsurance program from January 2019 to Dec. 31, 2023.
Under reinsurance, a state covers high losses from an Obamacare insurer to get them to lower premiums overall.
Wisconsin and Maine are the fifth and sixth states to get reinsurance approvals.
The other states to get approval are Minnesota, Alaska, Oregon, and Hawaii, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
CMS said in its letter that reinsurance will lower premiums in the state, which will mean that the federal government will pay fewer premium tax credits to low-income customers. Maine gets to keep the savings from the lower tax credits in order to help fund the reinsurance program.
