HEALTHCARE/LEGAL/OBAMACARE(ACA)/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A federal judge said Wednesday [10-18-17] he plans to rule next week on a request to force the Trump administration to make Obamacare subsidy payments that it plans to cut off beginning with a payment due on Friday.
A group of 19 states filed suit last week in federal court in San Francisco, asking that the Department of Health and Human Services be required to continue the so-called cost-sharing reduction payments despite President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that they would be ended…
A lawyer for the states, Greg Brown, said the issue is urgent because failing to make the payments to insurance companies on time will disrupt the insurance markets…
A federal government lawyer, James Burnham of the Department of Justice, noted that the law doesn’t actually require that the payments be made on any specific schedule, but simply that they be ‘periodic and timely.’
Even if the judge ordered the payments to continue, ‘the government would still have discretion about when to make the payments — it could be quarterly, it could be biannually,’ Burnham said.”
-Josh Gerstein, “Judge plans to rule next week in Obamacare subsidies fight,” Politico, Oct. 18, 2017 10:22pm