Here We Go: Eleven States Sue President Trump Over ObamaCare

President Trump is being sued by blue states. And I don’t just mean their mood.

S-U-E-D.

By not just ten, but eleven states. And Washington, D.C.

The petition aims to convince the White House to pull back on a directive permitting an expansion of health plans that sidestep ObamaCare rules.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and New York AG Barbara Underwood are leading the way.

The suit claims the Department of Labor’s referendum expanding access to association health programs is in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.

“What are association health plans,” you may ask?

Well, I’ll tell ya:

They’re programs which allow small businesses to form a conglomerate and purchase health insurance.

So: the Department of Labor’s rule lets more companies band together in order to comprise more associations.

The point of the move is to allow for less robust, cheaper health plans, thus providing alternatives to ObamaCare.

One of the plans’ cost-cutting measures is their lack of coverage in the area of mental health. They also don’t cover medical prescriptions.

So you can find out what’s wrong with you and what you need, but you can’t afford the medicine? Well, maybe it’s still better than ObamaCare, which has been a socialistic, bureaucratic nightmare (but Millennials still love socialism!).

Eleven states think it’s not better at all: according to the attorneys general, it’s downright wrong:

“[The rule] upends a decades-old understanding of a foundational employee benefits law for the purpose of exempting a significant portion of the health insurance market from the Affordable Care Act’s consumer protections.”

Furthermore, they say, the change would result in weakened consumer protection:

“Over the last few decades, Congress has legislated – including through the ACA – to protect health care consumers from AHPs’ fraudulent conduct and to ensure consumers have comprehensive health coverage without having higher premiums or fewer benefits based on a pre-existing condition. The AHP Rule would undo critical federal consumer protections and unduly expand access to AHPs without sufficient justification or consideration of the consequences.”

Democrats assert they have opposed the regulation because it creates “junk” insurance that will increase premiums for those still under ObamaCare, while not meeting participants of the new programs’ needs.

“…the rule increases the risk of fraud and harm to consumers, requires States to redirect significant enforcement resources to curb those risks, and jeopardizes state efforts to protect their residents through stronger regulation. The rule is unlawful and should be vacated.”

Or is this just Democrats fighting for ObamaCare on principle? Yeah — that sounds about right. Check out New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo:

“We have zero tolerance for any action that undermines the Affordable Care Act and puts health care coverage at risk for thousands of people.”

I guess “zero tolerance” is only bad when Trump does it.

These are the states suing: California (bad sign), Delaware, Kentucky, Virginia, Washington, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts. Plus D.C.

Thank you for reading!

Please find the relevant RedState link in the article here,

For something different, please review my coverage of Time magazine’s’ Putin-Trump cover, how the Democrats stack up to Republicans in congressional campaign fundraising, and HuffPost’s praise of communism.

Find all my RedState work here.

And please follow Alex Parker on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Here We Go: Eleven States Sue President Trump Over ObamaCare appeared first on RedState.