White House tells court it is immediately stopping ACA cost-sharing subsidies
The Trump administration informed a federal appeals court on Friday that the government would immediately halt payments to insurers that help millions of lower-income Americans afford coverage under the Affordable Care Act, formalizing a decision that could upend individual insurance markets across the country.
In the filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, officials wrote that the Health and Human Services Department has stopped what’s known as cost-sharing reduction payments, which help offset deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for roughly 7 million Americans. The payments were stopped, the filing said, because they were not formally appropriated by Congress.
The documents include an Oct. 11 legal opinion from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, informing HHS and the Treasury Department that he believes “the best interpretation of the law” indicates that money appropriated to HHS “cannot be used to fund” the subsidies.
Trump decided on Wednesday to cut off the payments — which were expected to total about $7 billion this year — even though several advisers had told him that doing so could have drastic consequences. Officials will not make an upcoming payment to insurers scheduled for Oct. 18, the court filing states.