Speaker 1: A federal judge has refused to force the Trump administration
Speaker 1: to resume making disputed Obamacare subsidy payments to insurance companies.
Speaker 1: After months of wavering, President Trump announced two weeks ago
Speaker 1: that he would cut off the payments, that prompted eighteen
Speaker 1: states in the District of Columbia to sue, claiming the
Speaker 1: payments are required under the Affordable Care Act. But on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: U S District Judge Vince Chabriya said he wouldn't order
Speaker 1: resumption of the payments while the litigation plays out. With us.
Speaker 1: To help explain all this is Brian Rye. He is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence's senior government analyst and he's here with me
Speaker 1: in the studio in Washington. Brian, thanks for being being here.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit first, just about these payments,
Speaker 1: what they are, what they're what they're designed to do. Hi, Greg,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. These are c s R cost
Speaker 1: sharing reduction payments that are mandated under the a c A.
Speaker 1: And these are different from the tax credits that lower
Speaker 1: income individuals can use to pay for the premiums. These
Speaker 1: CSR payments are intended to help those uh those lower
Speaker 1: income into the rules pay their out of pocket expenses,
Speaker 1: their co pays, coinsurance deductibles, those things, and that at
Speaker 1: play here is the fact that insurance companies have to
Speaker 1: make those payments to lower income individuals on silver plans
Speaker 1: under the A c A. What's not so certain is
Speaker 1: whether or not the government is able to reimburse the
Speaker 1: insurance companies for those payments, and that's at the heart
Speaker 1: of this lawsuit. Brian, what was the judges reasoning in
Speaker 1: refusing to restore the subsidies. I think the reasoning had
Speaker 1: been that a this wasn't necessarily a new issue. The
Speaker 1: threat that the Trump administration would terminate these payments had
Speaker 1: been out there for for several months, and several states,
Speaker 1: including California, who had taken the lead on this lawsuit,
Speaker 1: had indicated that they were preparing to do this, either
Speaker 1: by raising premiums to offset the cost or offset the
Speaker 1: loss of these payments, or otherwise shielding affected individuals. And
Speaker 1: so I think the judge rule that, look, um, you've
Speaker 1: already had a chance to prepare in many states had
Speaker 1: in fact prepared for that. So there's no need to
Speaker 1: force the administration to do this. And I think we'd
Speaker 1: go back to tying this to an the law student
Speaker 1: at the House administered that the House of Representatives had
Speaker 1: filed against the then Obama administration saying that, look, Congress
Speaker 1: had not appropriated money for these CSR payments. So even
Speaker 1: even though they were authorized by the A c A
Speaker 1: and less Congress appropriates them, Um, you know, that's these
Speaker 1: payments can't be made. And um that had been the
Speaker 1: initial ruling that that a federal judge had agreed with. Well, Brian,
Speaker 1: is the judge right in the sense that if he
Speaker 1: says that the states have basically already prepared for these
Speaker 1: payments uh not to be made. Uh? Is it the
Speaker 1: case that these caut sharing the csrs are not really
Speaker 1: as important as some of the critics of the president
Speaker 1: have been saying. There, you know, it remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: I think the feeling is that and when the CBO
Speaker 1: looked at this, they said, there might be a slight
Speaker 1: you know, loss of one million people, one million fewer
Speaker 1: people might have insurance because of some insurers might decide
Speaker 1: to pull out or other changes in there. But the
Speaker 1: fact is, if premiums, if the gross premium or to
Speaker 1: rise in the value of the tax credits that these
Speaker 1: uh silver planned individuals would get would also rise as well,
Speaker 1: So there might there shouldn't be a net impact, uh
Speaker 1: to a lot of the people who you would think
Speaker 1: would be affected by this. Now, again, if if insurers
Speaker 1: decided to drop out, if there are other uncertainties and
Speaker 1: maybe people have fewer choices, then that could obviously have
Speaker 1: a bit of a problem. But again, I think the
Speaker 1: judge rule that you've had time to prepare for this,
Speaker 1: and and so that's enough. So Brian, the attorney generals,
Speaker 1: the Attorney's General who won permission to defend the subsidies
Speaker 1: in that case before the US Court of Appeals in Washington,
Speaker 1: will that case be the determining factor here? It could be. Now,
Speaker 1: at the same time that this is happening in the courts,
Speaker 1: you do have an effort in Congress to to essentially
Speaker 1: try and authorize those payments and make the court essentially moot.
Speaker 1: You haven't what's the Alexander Murray agreement that would restore
Speaker 1: or essentially provide appropriated funds for these payments for a
Speaker 1: two year period and twenty nineteen UM That has some
Speaker 1: support and Rich it's not clear if that's something that
Speaker 1: they're going to bring to the floor. For a vote.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen before the
Speaker 1: end of the year, perhaps in December, tied with the
Speaker 1: budget battle that's going or the appropriations battle that's going
Speaker 1: to take place in December. So I think in the
Speaker 1: near term it's probably more important to keep an eye
Speaker 1: on whether it's the Alexander Murray, the Hatch Brady, some
Speaker 1: sort of compromise that would allow Congress to appropriate these
Speaker 1: funds and settle the question that way. Brian only about
Speaker 1: a minute left, But I guess one of the big
Speaker 1: questions with any of those congressional proposals is whether the
Speaker 1: president will support them. Where does he stand right now?
Speaker 1: What day of the week is it? It's um you
Speaker 1: is something that changes frequently. I think at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, the President would like to be able
Speaker 1: to sign something um that that that addresses this while
Speaker 1: at the same time leaving the door open for another
Speaker 1: attempt to repeal and replace the law. Longer term, uh,
Speaker 1: sometime probably next year, once they're done with tax reform.
Speaker 1: UM if they can do that, and then I think
Speaker 1: the President would be happy to sign that, But he
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be known as the guy who saved Obamacare.
Speaker 1: I want to thank our guests. That's Brian Ray. He's
Speaker 1: a senior government analyst for Bloomberg and told intelligence talking
Speaker 1: to us about the new federal court ruling that refused
Speaker 1: to force the Trump administration to again start making the
Speaker 1: disputed Obamacare payments to insurance companies. I'm sure we'll be
Speaker 1: talking about Obamacare more in the future. Coming up on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law, the Trump administration weighs in in the case
Speaker 1: of a California college student who was told he couldn't
Speaker 1: hand out copies of the Constitution because he wasn't in
Speaker 1: the school's designated free speech zone. We'll talk about that
Speaker 1: court case coming up in a moment.