In a lengthy blog post about the Texas lawsuit that’s trying to bring down the ACA, Josh Blackman takes aim at an amicus brief filed by a bipartisan group of law professors (including me). The brief argues that the Affordable Care Act should stand, even if the penalty-free individual mandate is held unconstitutional. Blackman isn’t […]
That’s the opening of a piece of mine in the Wall Street Journal (gated, unfortunately) about what states should do in response to the Trump administration’s anticipated relaxation of rules governing short-term plans. Where states allow short-term plans without restriction, the plans will be a lot cheaper than those sold on the exchanges because they don’t have to comply with the ACA. But that low price comes with […]
A slew of amicus briefs were filed yesterday in the Texas lawsuit, almost every one of them pushing back on the argument that the Affordable Care Act should be invalidated, in whole or in part. (I filed one myself, together with a bipartisan group of law professors.) Today, I wanted to highlight one of those […]
The Trump administration’s refusal to defend portions of the Affordable Care Act is shocking enough. Equally shocking is how little it seems to care what happens if it gets what it’s asking for. One question in particular: what about legal protections for the 160 million people who get insurance through their employers? Will their insurance […]
Today was a bad day for insurers seeking more than $12 billion in risk corridor money from the United States. Over a dissent, the Federal Circuit ruled that the federal government doesn’t owe them a cent. (I’ve been following the litigation for a long time; you can catch up on my prior posts here.) The […]
Together with a bipartisan group of law professors—Jonathan Adler, Abbe Gluck, Ilya Somin, and Kevin Walsh—I submitted an amicus brief today in the Texas litigation over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Joe Palmore at Morrison and Foerster graciously helped to pull the brief together; he did characteristically excellent work. The amicus brief doesn’t […]
In an unexpected move, the Justice Department filed a brief this evening urging a Texas court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act’s crucial insurance reforms—including the prohibition on refusing to cover people with preexisting conditions. Although the ACA is not in immediate peril, the brief represents a blow to the integrity of the Justice Department. […]
When you bring a federal lawsuit, you have to show that you’ve suffered an injury that the defendant has caused and that, if you prevail, the court can enter relief that will redress that injury. In assessing the sufficiency of your claim for standing, the court—in principle, at least—is supposed to assume that you’ll prevail […]
This post was co-authored with Eli Savit, an attorney and adjunct professor at the University of Michigan Law School. In a New York Times op-ed this week, we argued that a Michigan bill that would impose work requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits any program […]
This post was co-authored with Eli Savit, an attorney and adjunct professor at the University of Michigan Law School. As we highlighted yesterday in the New York Times, a Michigan bill to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients would have severe racially discriminatory effects. The bill exempts people from the work requirement if they live […]
That’s the title of an op-ed that Eli Savit and I just published at the New York Times. For those who are too poor to afford health insurance, Medicaid is a lifeline. This joint federal and state program doesn’t care whether you’re white or black, Christian or Muslim, Republican or Democrat, a city-dweller or a […]
Together with Scott Levy and Rahul Rajkumar, both formerly of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, I’ve got a new piece out in the New England Journal of Medicine: In an ambitious effort to slow the growth of health care costs, the Affordable Care Act created the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) […]
Earlier this week, the Court of Federal Claims certified a class action brought by insurers to recover the cost-sharing payments that President Trump unceremoniously terminated. At first blush, the court’s opinion looks unremarkable. Because insurers share a common legal claim—you promised to pay me, and you broke that promise—it makes sense to certify a single […]
This piece is co-authored by Rachel Sachs, associate professor of law at Washington University Law School. It’s cross-posted at the Health Affairs Blog. Although drug formularies are ubiquitous in Medicare and the private insurance market, they’re absent in Medicaid. By law, state Medicaid programs that offer prescription drug coverage (as they all do) must cover all drugs approved […]
Credit where credit is due: the Trump administration announced yesterday that it won’t look the other way if Idaho flouts the Affordable Care Act. The ACA “remains the law and we have a duty to enforce and uphold the law,” CMS administrator Seema Verma explained in a letter to Idaho’s governor and its insurance director. Maybe it’s a […]