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October 13, 2017 at 02:41 PM
California and at least three other states on Friday vowed to sue the Trump administration to force federal regulators to continue paying billions of dollars in cost-sharing reduction subsidy payments under the Affordable Care Act.
President Donald Trump announced Thursday he would end federal payments that help qualifying residents purchase insurance plans. More than one million Californians buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s health care exchanges.
The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where the health care law’s cost-sharing subsidies are being challenged, that the federal government does not intend to make the next scheduled payment on Oct. 18.
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California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Friday called the president’s decision “sabotage, plain and simple” and said a coalition of attorneys general will seek an order in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to force the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to make the Oct. 18 payment and all payments going forward.
“It’s long past time President Trump learned he doesn’t get to just pick and choose which laws he’ll follow or which bills he’ll pay, Becerra said.
Becerra this spring boosted his legal team’s health care expertise by hiring two attorneys familiar with the Affordable Care Act. Laura Stuber was oversight counsel at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she coordinated the Obama administration’s defense of its health care policies in the Republican-controlled Congress. Melanie Fontes Rainer is the former chief of staff at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
