- Trump to Scrap Critical Health Care Subsidies, Hitting Obamacare Again New York Times by Robert Pear, Maggie Haberman and Reed Abelson — President Trump will scrap subsidies to health insurance companies that help pay out-of-pocket costs of low-income people, the White House said late Thursday. His plans were disclosed hours after the president ordered potentially sweeping changes in the nation's insurance system, including sales of cheaper policies with fewer benefits and fewer protections for consumers. The twin hits to the Affordable Care Act could unravel President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement, sending insurance premiums soaring and insurance companies fleeing from the health law's online marketplaces. After Republicans failed to repeal the health law in Congress, Mr. Trump appears determined to dismantle it on his own.
- Trump Health Care Order Could Face Strong Legal Objections Reuters by Brendan Pierson and Nate Raymond — U.S. President Donald Trump's expected plan to let Americans buy insurance across state lines could violate federal law governing employee benefit plans and will almost certainly be challenged in court, several legal experts said. Several experts in health care and employment law said Trump's plan could violate the U.S. Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), a federal law that governs large group plans that must be provided or maintained by employers or employee organizations..."The E in ERISA is employee," Joseph Antos, a health care expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank that has been critical of Obamacare. "They are going to have to stretch the definition of whether you're an employee or not," he said of Trump's expected plan.
- How Trump Set Up Obamacare to Fail Vox by Dylan Scott — The most critical time of the year for the health care law is almost here: open enrollment, when millions of people log on to online marketplaces, check whether they qualify for federal subsidies to help them pay their premiums, and shop for plans. For the past three years, at least 10 million people have gotten insurance that way each year. But this year, open enrollment is in the hands of a White House that's openly hostile to the Affordable Care Act — and the Trump administration is taking advantage of the best opportunity it has to undercut the law.
- In New Test for Obamacare, Iowa Seeks to Abandon Marketplace New York Times by Abby Goodnough — With efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act dead in Congress for now, a critical test for the law's future is playing out in one small, conservative-leaning state. Iowa is anxiously waiting for the Trump administration to rule on a request that is loaded with implications for the law's survival. If approved by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, it would allow the state to jettison some of Obamacare's main features next year — its federally run insurance marketplace, its system for providing subsidies, its focus on helping poorer people afford insurance and medical care — and could open the door for other states to do the same. Iowa's Republican leaders think their plan would save the state's individual insurance market by making premiums cheaper for everyone. But critics say the lower prices come at the expense of much higher deductibles for many with modest incomes, and that approval of the plan would amount to another way of undermining the law.