A federal judge on Wednesday declined to grant an order that would have forced Donald Trump to continue making federal payments that reimburse health insurers for providing discounted coverage.
The challengers in the case, 19 attorneys general, had hoped to get a temporary order compelling Trump to resume the reimbursements while the case is litigated. The Washington Post writes:
In his decision, Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California wrote that resuming the payments to insurers “would be counterproductive.”
Chhabria pointed out that most states’ insurances regulators had already prepared for a possible end to the money, by allowing companies to charge higher rates for the coming year. “Although you wouldn’t know it from reading the states’ papers in this lawsuit,” he wrote, “the truth is that most state regulators have devised responses.”
The judge did not decide the suit’s core question: whether the federal government must continue funding the payments without a specific congressional appropriation.
“Both sides have reasonable arguments,” he said. But, he said, “it initially appears that the Administration has the stronger legal position” because the 2010 law did not explicitly provide permanent funding for the so-called CSR payments in the same way it did for a separate subsidy that helps people with ACA health plans afford their monthly premiums.
Earlier in the day, the Congressional Budget Office found that the bipartisan Alexander-Murray bill aimed at stabilizing the Affordable Care Act's insurance markets would both reduce the deficit and keep premiums from going up 20 percent due to Trump's sabotage of the system.
Nonetheless, Trump has thus far refused to back the bill, which would pass the Senate if Trump told McConnell to put it up for a vote.
Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin put Trump's dilemma nicely:
In sum, it’s time for Trump to decide what he wants to do — stick Americans with soaring premium costs or back a bill that shrinks the deficit and maintains much of the status quo. For any other president this is a slam-dunk. For Trump it’s paralyzing.