CALIFORNIA/HEALTHCARE/LEGAL/OBAMACARE(ACA): “A California federal judge on Wednesday [10-25-17] said he wouldn’t force the Trump administration to continue paying insurers for providing health-coverage discounts to lower-income consumers, a blow to Democrats who fear the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges will crater without the funding.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco said the case was ‘close and complicated,’ but that, at the current early stage of the case, the administration had a stronger legal position than the Democratic-led states that filed the lawsuit seeking to keep the payments going.
The government payments reimbursed insurers for providing subsidies to some low-income consumers for out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and copays. Insurers are required by the ACA to provide these cost-sharing subsidies and about seven million people who buy health plans on the ACA’s insurance exchanges get them…
The Trump administration’s discontinuation of the insurance payments has the potential to further undermine the ACA, adding more urgency to congressional deliberations about whether and how to make changes and fixes to the law.”
-Brent Kendall and Stephanie Armour, “Trump Administration Won’t Be Forced to Provide Health-Insurance Subsidies,” The Wall Street Journal online, Oct. 25, 2017 05:13pm