Judge: President Trump’s health care cuts don’t pose immediate threat
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Monday hammered an attorney for California over the state’s push for a court order immediately reinstating “Obamacare” subsidies cut off by the Trump administration, saying California and other states had protected consumers from the loss of the funding. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria did not issue a ruling but appeared highly skeptical of the request by California, 17 other states and the District of Columbia to force the government to make the payments as their lawsuit over the subsidies works its way through the courts, which will take months.
State attorneys Bacerra
general, led by California Democrat Xavier Becerra, argue the monthly payments to insurance providers are required under former President Barack Obama’s health care law. Without them, consumers will face higher costs and insurers will back out of the law’s health insurance markets, causing them to fall apart, the states say.
The cost-sharing payments reimburse insurers for providing lower-income people with discounts on out-of-pocket costs. President Donald Trump halted the subsidies earlier this month, criticizing them as insurance company bailouts. California and other states had anticipated the subsidies would end and found a way to ensure consumers would not pay more for insurance, Chhabria, an Obama appointee, said during a hearing. The states limited the plans for which insurers could hike premiums to make up for the lost subsidies and ensured that many people will get more tax credits for their health insurance purchases, the judge said. Chhabria peppered an attorney for California with questions about why he should force the administration to resume payments when the states had devised a workaround that would benefit many consumers.
“The state of California is standing on the courthouse steps denouncing the president for taking away people’s health care, when the truth is that California has come up with a solution to that issue that is going to result in better health care for a lot of people,” Chhabria said.