Trump 'quietly shuts down' funding to Obamacare’s outreach budget

Care groups are complaining that their grants to run outreach programmes, which are designed to help Americans get access to health insurance, have dried up

Donald Trump suffered a heavy blow when he failed in July to pass a bill that would have toppled Obamacare (Getty Images)

Donald Trump has quietly shut down funds to a $63m (£48m) Obamacare project – just weeks after he failed to pass a bill to derail the affordable care programme entirely, it has been claimed.

The outreach system provides workers known as Navigators who are trained to help individuals and small businesses get access to health insurance packages which they can afford.

The White House last month said it would slash the budget for the service by $23 million – or 41 per cent – but it was revealed that money handed out in the form of grants already dried up this week.

Managers of non-profits who run the project across the US said they have been closing centres and making staff redundant after complaining their funds ran out in recent days.

Critics of Mr Trump say the move to allegedly stop injecting cash into the programme, which his administration has not confirmed, is designed to sabotage Obamacare.

It came just weeks after the US president suffered a heavy blow when senators failed to pass a bill that would have toppled the program – a plan he touted as one of his key pledges.

Owners of care groups complained that the funds to finance the Navigator outreach programme dried up on September 1, forcing them to scale back or shut down their projects, Vox reported.

Shelli Quenga, who runs the Palmetto Project, in South Carolina, said: "We know nothing right now. I laid off two people today and cut everybody else back to part-time for the remainder of the month. We have to pull from our own money at this point."

Donna Friedsam, director of Covering Wisconsin, also complained after their budget dried up.

She said: “I have delivered 10 layoff notices to staff members. We don’t have a funding flow anymore.”

The care group owners said The White House had not announced when funding earmarked for next year will be released – but believe it could be as late as September 30.

A Health and Human Services spokesperson declined to comment to CNBC on when the information on the grants would be released, only saying "that information is forthcoming".

President Obama introduced the Affordable Care Act – known as Obamacare – in 2010 in a move designed to help some 15 per cent in the US who did not have the means to sign up for health insurance.

His successor Mr Trump branded it a “disaster” and pledged to scrap the programme, which costs hundreds of millions a year, so his administration can replace it with their own system.