SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Cheryl Fish-Parcham, director of access initiatives at Families USA, called the ending of the subsidies "the most malicious and harmful attack yet by the Trump Administration on the Affordable Care Act." (Photo: Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)
Multi-State Suit Targets Trump's "Reckless Assault" on Healthcare as Anger Flows
"This is sabotage, plain and simple," said California AG Becerra of the White House's decision to stop funding Obamacare's cost-sharing subsidies.
Oct 14, 2017
Warning of the decision's "great human cost," 19 attorneys general on Friday filed suit in a federal court to stop President Donald Trump's decision to cut off key Obamacare cost-sharing subsidies, as outrage from advocacy groups continued to pour in.
"Taking these legally required subsidies away from working families' health plans and forcing them to choose between paying rent or their medical bills is completely reckless. This is sabotage, plain and simple," said California Attorney Xavier General Becerra, who's leading the coalition of states.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who's also a party to the suit, called it "a reckless assault on the healthcare of thousands of New Yorkers and millions of Americans," which is part of a "partisan campaign to sabotage our healthcare system."
The suit (pdf), filed Friday afternoon, says that ending the subsidies "will harm millions of state residents and the states themselves by making health insurance more expensive and less accessible," thus "impos[ing] a great human cost."
Laying out the consequences of the change, Vox explained how the "new policy is lose-lose-lose for key stakeholders with no upside:"
- It will raise Obamacare premiums by an estimated 20 percent in 2018, as health plans have to charge more to make up the lost funds. By 2020, premiums would increase 25 percent due to this change.
- Pulling the plug actually increases the national deficit. As those insurance plans make double-digit rate increases, the government will have to spend billions more on the other subsidies that 10 million Americans receive to purchase that coverage.
- The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this move will ultimately cost the government $194 billion over the next decade.
- The number of uninsured Americans would rise by one million people in 2018, in the CBO's estimate.
- Insurance companies lose out, too, particularly those that assumed Trump would pay these subsidies and set their premiums accordingly. They now stand to face significant financial loses on the Obamacare marketplaces.
With such impacts in mind, Cheryl Fish-Parcham, director of access initiatives at Families USA, called the ending of the subsidies "the most malicious and harmful attack yet by the Trump Administration on the Affordable Care Act."
Denouncing the cut-off as well as Trump's executive order Thursday attacking the ACA, Derrick Johnson, interim president and CEO of NAACP, said, "President Trump does not care about protecting the health of Americans. To end the Affordable Care Act in this way is a desperate maneuver to engineer a political win for his right-wing base, after nearly a year of covert, detrimental action."
According to Chris Carson, president of League of Women Voters, it showed that "Trump is attempting to dismantle the American healthcare system piece by piece, in the same dangerous and under-the-table manner that the American people made clear to their Congressional leaders is unacceptable." While the healthcare law is imperfect, "Congress should work to improve it," she said. "The White House should not undo the positive impacts this legislation has had for millions of Americans who previously could not afford healthcare coverage."
As Sen. Bernie Sanders sees it, "we have a president who is trying to destroy the American healthcare system."
Joining California and New York in the new suit are the attorneys general of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Oregon, North Carolina, Illinois, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Minnesota, New Mexico, Washington, Iowa, and the District of Columbia.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Warning of the decision's "great human cost," 19 attorneys general on Friday filed suit in a federal court to stop President Donald Trump's decision to cut off key Obamacare cost-sharing subsidies, as outrage from advocacy groups continued to pour in.
"Taking these legally required subsidies away from working families' health plans and forcing them to choose between paying rent or their medical bills is completely reckless. This is sabotage, plain and simple," said California Attorney Xavier General Becerra, who's leading the coalition of states.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who's also a party to the suit, called it "a reckless assault on the healthcare of thousands of New Yorkers and millions of Americans," which is part of a "partisan campaign to sabotage our healthcare system."
The suit (pdf), filed Friday afternoon, says that ending the subsidies "will harm millions of state residents and the states themselves by making health insurance more expensive and less accessible," thus "impos[ing] a great human cost."
Laying out the consequences of the change, Vox explained how the "new policy is lose-lose-lose for key stakeholders with no upside:"
- It will raise Obamacare premiums by an estimated 20 percent in 2018, as health plans have to charge more to make up the lost funds. By 2020, premiums would increase 25 percent due to this change.
- Pulling the plug actually increases the national deficit. As those insurance plans make double-digit rate increases, the government will have to spend billions more on the other subsidies that 10 million Americans receive to purchase that coverage.
- The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this move will ultimately cost the government $194 billion over the next decade.
- The number of uninsured Americans would rise by one million people in 2018, in the CBO's estimate.
- Insurance companies lose out, too, particularly those that assumed Trump would pay these subsidies and set their premiums accordingly. They now stand to face significant financial loses on the Obamacare marketplaces.
With such impacts in mind, Cheryl Fish-Parcham, director of access initiatives at Families USA, called the ending of the subsidies "the most malicious and harmful attack yet by the Trump Administration on the Affordable Care Act."
Denouncing the cut-off as well as Trump's executive order Thursday attacking the ACA, Derrick Johnson, interim president and CEO of NAACP, said, "President Trump does not care about protecting the health of Americans. To end the Affordable Care Act in this way is a desperate maneuver to engineer a political win for his right-wing base, after nearly a year of covert, detrimental action."
According to Chris Carson, president of League of Women Voters, it showed that "Trump is attempting to dismantle the American healthcare system piece by piece, in the same dangerous and under-the-table manner that the American people made clear to their Congressional leaders is unacceptable." While the healthcare law is imperfect, "Congress should work to improve it," she said. "The White House should not undo the positive impacts this legislation has had for millions of Americans who previously could not afford healthcare coverage."
As Sen. Bernie Sanders sees it, "we have a president who is trying to destroy the American healthcare system."
Joining California and New York in the new suit are the attorneys general of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Oregon, North Carolina, Illinois, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Minnesota, New Mexico, Washington, Iowa, and the District of Columbia.
Warning of the decision's "great human cost," 19 attorneys general on Friday filed suit in a federal court to stop President Donald Trump's decision to cut off key Obamacare cost-sharing subsidies, as outrage from advocacy groups continued to pour in.
"Taking these legally required subsidies away from working families' health plans and forcing them to choose between paying rent or their medical bills is completely reckless. This is sabotage, plain and simple," said California Attorney Xavier General Becerra, who's leading the coalition of states.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who's also a party to the suit, called it "a reckless assault on the healthcare of thousands of New Yorkers and millions of Americans," which is part of a "partisan campaign to sabotage our healthcare system."
The suit (pdf), filed Friday afternoon, says that ending the subsidies "will harm millions of state residents and the states themselves by making health insurance more expensive and less accessible," thus "impos[ing] a great human cost."
Laying out the consequences of the change, Vox explained how the "new policy is lose-lose-lose for key stakeholders with no upside:"
- It will raise Obamacare premiums by an estimated 20 percent in 2018, as health plans have to charge more to make up the lost funds. By 2020, premiums would increase 25 percent due to this change.
- Pulling the plug actually increases the national deficit. As those insurance plans make double-digit rate increases, the government will have to spend billions more on the other subsidies that 10 million Americans receive to purchase that coverage.
- The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this move will ultimately cost the government $194 billion over the next decade.
- The number of uninsured Americans would rise by one million people in 2018, in the CBO's estimate.
- Insurance companies lose out, too, particularly those that assumed Trump would pay these subsidies and set their premiums accordingly. They now stand to face significant financial loses on the Obamacare marketplaces.
With such impacts in mind, Cheryl Fish-Parcham, director of access initiatives at Families USA, called the ending of the subsidies "the most malicious and harmful attack yet by the Trump Administration on the Affordable Care Act."
Denouncing the cut-off as well as Trump's executive order Thursday attacking the ACA, Derrick Johnson, interim president and CEO of NAACP, said, "President Trump does not care about protecting the health of Americans. To end the Affordable Care Act in this way is a desperate maneuver to engineer a political win for his right-wing base, after nearly a year of covert, detrimental action."
According to Chris Carson, president of League of Women Voters, it showed that "Trump is attempting to dismantle the American healthcare system piece by piece, in the same dangerous and under-the-table manner that the American people made clear to their Congressional leaders is unacceptable." While the healthcare law is imperfect, "Congress should work to improve it," she said. "The White House should not undo the positive impacts this legislation has had for millions of Americans who previously could not afford healthcare coverage."
As Sen. Bernie Sanders sees it, "we have a president who is trying to destroy the American healthcare system."
Joining California and New York in the new suit are the attorneys general of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Oregon, North Carolina, Illinois, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Minnesota, New Mexico, Washington, Iowa, and the District of Columbia.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.