Fil-Am attorney general sues Trump administration over Affordable Care Act

LOS ANGELES – California Attorney General Rob Bonta Thursday joined a multistate coalition in filing a challenge to a final rule by the US Department of Health and Human Services that critics say would create significant barriers to obtaining health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

“Far from delivering on their promises to drive down costs and `make America healthier,’ the Trump administration’s HHS and CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) are doing their best to make it harder and more expensive for Americans to obtain health insurance and access care,” Bonta said in a statement.

“These sweeping changes would impose onerous verification requirements, junk health insurance premiums for some consumers, shorten enrollment periods in federal and state health care exchanges like Covered California, deprive up to 1.8 million Americans of health insurance, drive up out-of-pocket health care costs and so much more,” he said. “It’s unlawful and it’s wrong — we’re meeting the Trump administration in court to defend Americans’ health care coverage.”

The coalition is co-led by Bonta with the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New Jersey.

The Trump administration’s final rule would make a range of amendments to the rules governing federal and state health insurance marketplaces, which the administration estimates will cause between 725,000 and 1.8 million people to lose their health insurance, while causing millions more to pay increased insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs like co-pays and deductibles.

In the lawsuit, the attorneys general argue that the HHS and CMS rule is arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law, and violates the Administrative Procedure Act. The coalition is also seeking preliminary relief, and a stay, to prevent the challenged portions of the final rule from taking effect before the Aug. 25 effective date.

Congress enacted the ACA in 2010 to increase the number of Americans with health insurance and decrease the cost of health care. The plaintiffs say that 15 years later, the act continues to meet its goals, with annual enrollment on the ACA marketplace doubling over the past five years, resulting in over 24 million people signing up for health insurance coverage in plan year 2025 on the ACA exchanges and receiving subsidies to make such coverage affordable.

California has nearly two million ACA plan enrollees, the third highest of any state, Bonta said.

According to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, with less than four months until open enrollment for plan year 2026 begins, the Trump administration’s final rule would abruptly reverse the trend, erecting a series of new barriers to enrollment, including imposing an automatic monthly charge on all automatically re-enrolled consumers who qualify for $0 premiums, shortening the open enrollment period for signing up for health coverage, and making other changes which will make coverage less affordable for millions of individuals nationwide. (CNS)