The White House walked back its threat Wednesday to explode the Obamacare market by halting crucial payments to health insurance companies, just hours after signaling it might take that drastic step within weeks.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Tuesday evening that the administration was considering withholding next months distribution of cost-sharing reduction disbursements, or CSRs, to insurers, according to a House Democratic aide who asked not to be identified.

But just hours after HuffPost and other news outlets reported the news, Politico reported the White House had dropped this gambit and plans to continue honoring the CSRs for now, at least. The payments are the subject on an ongoing legal dispute.

Although a final decision for how long has not yet been made, the administration will continue to pay CSRs, an OMB official said in a written statement.

The consequences of halting these payments to health insurance companies would be devastating for people who buy coverage on their own, rather than through employers. Insurers would face higher costs leading to bigger premium hikes, and in many states could respond by cancelling coverage for the rest of 2017.

The administrations sudden shift marks the latest example of President Donald Trump issuing a threat, and then withdrawing it when it doesnt result in the deal he wanted.

Trump has threatened repeatedly to allow the Obamacare insurance markets to wither under his watch , either through inaction or by halting federal payments to health insurance companies. He suggested such a strategy both before and after last months collapse of the House Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act and enact a measure that would cover 24 million fewer people.

This time, the threat came as the White House and Congress rush to enact a spending bill to keep the federal government operational, because current funding expires when the clock strikes midnight on Saturday.

Trumps odd gambit has been that voters will blame Democrats the party that enacted the Affordable Care Act rather than Republicans who control the legislative and executive branches of government for the fallout from his actions. Polls have repeatedly indicated the opposite that voters will hold Trump and the Republicans responsible for what happens to health insurance.

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