put him in office. 6 million people benefit from the cost sharing subsidies and those subsidies are used to hem low income americans pay for out of pocket costs. 70% of them live in states trump won in november. meanwhile as the president solicits congressional support for health care, he was seen golfing with senator lindsey graham. the pair went golfing yesterday for the second time in about a week. joining me now, jonathan allen, a national political reporter for nbc news digital. jonathan, i want to start with you. your recent article trump s estrangement from the gop one republican at a time. how do you interpret president trump and lindsey graham playing golf for the second time in recent days after the president has gone to verbal war with graham s esteemed colleague bob corker. it s really interesting. president trump s tactics lead
name called by the president and then saying let s have a beer. lindsey graham did something brilliant last week after his golf outing with the president which is that he tweeted what a great golfer donald trump was and said he beat him even in hard conditions. i think he got a 73. you do have to give him that. and for lindsey graham to broadcast that is his olive branch to donald trump saying i m willing to praise you in public, as we publi public, as well. they want the bannon wing wants every republican to denounce bob corker for being mean to donald trump in public. lindsey graham by being friendly with donald trump is avoiding that kind of abuse. let s talk about the rolling back of obamacare subsidies saying 70% of those benefits from the cost sharing subsidies
cost sharing subsidies live in states trump won last november. will that reality trump supporters, and if so, when? it could. there s a certain logic to the argument that trump now owns this, by kicking it to congress and saying you deal with it, taking as explicit an action as refusing to make payments his hands are now all over this. it s because of his actions that these premiums are going to rise. the problem, though, is trump doesn t really seem to get blamed for much of anything. and congress is an easy scapegoat for him. and by kicking the ball to them, he may very well be shifting the blame to them in the minds of voters. so it s hard to really say at this point. i think this is one more problem that mitch mcconnell doesn t need, when you were talking earlier about rand paul and lindsey graham meeting with the president, part of what s going
under obamacare. take a look at who those insurance companies support and i guarantee you one thing, it s not donald trump. trump supporters may feel the pinch. the associated press finds president trump won nine of ten states where consumers benefitted most from cost sharing subsidies. the congressional budget office projects about a 20% increase nationwide. it s important to understand that the change to these cost sharing reductions is something that came out of litigation where a court found that congress had not appropriated this money to pay insurance companies to make insurance more affordable for low income families. and that legal case is the basis where the trump administration says it is no longer going to pay these subsidies. what it also does is it is a way for the trump administration to try to leverage democrats to
he campaigned on much of it and if nothing else he s keeping his promises now. what may be surprising, though, or being widely debated is how much of this is permanent. what also stands out in both actions today is how each one shifts responsibility and accountant from the white house and on to congress and health care. one by one it s going to come down and we re going to have great health care in our country. we re going to have great health care in our country. we re taking a little bit different route than we had hoped because getting congress, they forgot what their pledges were. so we re going a little different roult. but you know what? in the end it s going to be just as if he can the active and maybe it will even be better. that was the president today after announcing late last night he was immediately sending cost sharing subsidies for insurers for reducing deductibles and