A group of state attorney generals asked a federal court to join a case against the Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- in defense of the healthcare subsidies President Donald Trump has threatened not to pay -- and yesterday the court said yes.
According to Constitution Daily, the order gives 17 states and the local Washington, D.C., government the right to defend the constitutionality of insurer payments in ACA, known as cost-sharing subsidies.
The three-page order “raised the prospect that the case would continue to proceed even if the Trump Administration attempted to scuttle it by abandoning its participation in the case or by cutting off the subsidies, which it has indicated it might do,” wrote Lyle Denniston, a 58-year veteran of Supreme Court and legal journalism. The National Constitution Center (NCC), a non-partisan institution established by Congress, regularly features Denniston’s articles.
The order accepted the following key arguments by the group of attorney generals:
- State interests would be seriously harmed if the subsidies are ended.
- The Trump Administration will not adequately protect the states’ interests.
- It’s open to legal debate that the Trump Administration can choose to end the subsidies by its own action
President Trump has said that the government should let the ACA law collapse on its own, but that’s “an event that would be more likely to happen if the Administration were to take unilateral action to end the subsidies,” wrote Denniston.
If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
The healthcare subsidies are expected to reach $9 billion by September 30, 2017, and are predicted to rise to $16 billion by 2026, according to the analysis.
Denniston noted that although the panel of three federal judges was chosen at random, as luck would have it, all three are more liberal members of the 11-member D.C. Circuit Court. The motions panel included Circuit Judges Patricia A. Millett, Cornelia T.L. Pillard and Robert L. Wilkins.
Read the original story on the Lyle Denniston Law News website.
