“Congress provided funding for them in the same permanent appropriation that funds the law’s premium tax credits.”

Washington, DC – Following President Trump’s decision to stop making critical cost-sharing reduction payments to health insurance companies, 18 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in federal district court, asking a judge to compel those payments as required by the Affordable Care Act. Constitutional Accountability Center – which represents leading Members of Congress who helped enact the ACA in filing a friend of the court brief in support of the states – issued the following statement:  

“President Trump has taken a flawed legal position,” said CAC President Elizabeth Wydra, “in his effort to sabotage the Affordable Care Act – a decision that could harm millions of Americans and also blow a nearly $200 billion hole in the deficit over a decade. None of this is necessary. As Members of Congress responsible for enacting the Affordable Care Act know better than anyone, Obamacare without doubt provides funding for these cost-sharing reduction payments.”
 
“These payments are essential to how the ACA was designed to operate,” continued CAC Chief Counsel Brianne Gorod, “and that’s why Congress drafted the ACA to fund them out of the same permanent appropriation that funds the tax credits that low and middle-income buyers get directly when they buy health insurance on the exchanges. President Trump’s needless, harmful decision violates the law, and the courts should require the Administration to make these payments.”

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Resources:

Brief of Members of Congress in State of California, et al. v. Trump: https://www.theusconstitution.org/sites/default/files/California-v-Trump-Amicus.pdf

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Constitutional Accountability Center (www.theusconstitution.org) is a think tank, public interest law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history.

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