Trump administration slashes funding for Obamacare groups

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is eliminating most of the funding for grass-roots groups that help Americans get Affordable Care Act insurance and will for the first time urge the groups to promote health plans that bypass the law’s consumer protections and required benefits.

The reduction, the second round of cuts that began a summer ago, will shrink the federal money devoted to groups known as navigators from $36.8 million to $10 million for the enrollment period that starts in November.

The new reduction of help for so-called navigators, announced late Tuesday afternoon by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, fits within a pattern of moves by the administration to weaken the sweeping health-care law that President Donald Trump has vowed to demolish. During his first year in office, the president pressed the Republican-led Congress to repeal much of the 2010 law that was one of President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievements.

Since Congress was unable to pass such a law, Trump and his aides have been taking a series of steps to weaken the law through administration maneuvers. The cuts to grass-roots groups around the country were announced three days after health officials revealed that, because of a pending lawsuit, they were suspending a program created by the law to even out the burden on insurers whose customers are especially unhealthy or sick.