- Trump's Obamacare Move May Bolster Law The Hill by Peter Sullivan — President Trump's decision to cancel key Obamacare payments could be backfiring. Trump has claimed the health law is "imploding," and earlier this month he took an action seemingly aimed at that goal: cutting off key payments to insurers known as cost-sharing reductions. But there are inadvertent benefits of Trump's action: Many Obamacare enrollees are actually getting a better deal and the potential to get more generous insurance because Trump cut off the payments....If the plans are more expensive, people get a bigger subsidy.
- Federal Judge Refuses to Order the Trump Administration to Resume ACA Payments Washington Post by Amy Goldstein and Juliet Eilperin — A federal judge in California on Wednesday denied a request from 19 attorneys general across the country to force the Trump administration to resume funding of cost-sharing payments under the Affordable Care Act. The ruling leaves intact President Trump's decision earlier this month to immediately end the payments that reimburse insurers for discounts the law requires them to give lower-income customers with health plans through ACA marketplaces. The attorneys general, from 18 states and the District of Columbia, were seeking a temporary order that would have maintained the funding while the rest of the case is decided. 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."