Attorneys general from eighteen states and the District of Columbia have teamed up for a lawsuit against President Trump’s decision to discontinue payments to Obamacare insurers.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Friday that New York, California, and Massachusetts would be spearheading an effort to pursue an injunction against the decision. The lawsuit, filed later in the day with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California shows that Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia have joined the cause.
The lawsuit filed by the attorneys general says that their states and Washington, D.C., “bring this action to protect themselves and their residents from the unlawful actions of the President and the Secretaries of the Treasury and Health and Human Services, and other federal officials responsible for implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
The payments Trump decided to halt are cost-sharing reduction payments that insurers receive as a reimbursement for lowering copays and deductibles for low-income Obamacare customers. As a result, insurers will likely raise prices if the subsidies are discontinued because they are still required to lower out-of-pocket costs for poor enrollees.
A group of 18 attorneys general, including from New York, launched a separate effort to intervene in a 2014 lawsuit between the House and the Obama administration on healthcare. The House claimed the cost-sharing reduction payments required congressional funding, however, the Obama administration said the CSRs do not require congressional funding.
A federal judge agreed with the House in 2016, but stayed her ruling until the 2016 election concluded. The Trump administration did not decide if it would continue the Obama administration’s appeal, that is until Trump announced Thursday night that his administration would be dropping the appeal, ending payments to insurers on Oct. 18.
Trump acknowledged the judge’s ruling, but Democrats say his decision was meant to undercut Obamacare.
