More state AGs aim to join ACA defense

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is seeking to intervene in a lawsuit to defend the Affordable Care Act.

The Democrat announced Jan. 31 her motion to intervene. Three other Democratic attorneys general—Phil Weiser of Colorado, Aaron Ford of Nevada and Thomas Miller of Iowa—said they would step in to protect the law, too. They would join 16 other Democratic attorneys general in defending the law. The Justice Department last June said it would not take up the case.

U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor last month declared the ACA to be unconstitutional, but the law remains intact while appeals wind their way through the courts.

Also last week, a federal district judge tossed Maryland’s lawsuit against the Trump administration to affirm that the law is constitutional. The judge determined Maryland didn’t have standing to sue because the claim that it may not be enforced was too speculative.

The state’s suit focused on President Donald Trump’s attacks on the ACA and refusal to defend the Obamacare insurance coverage provisions in a Texas lawsuit, claiming that posed an immediate threat to the healthcare law because he might outright stop enforcing it.

“The state’s suit is tantamount to a request for an advisory opinion to thwart the possibility of the president deciding not to enforce the act,” Judge Ellen Hollander wrote in her opinion.