Attorney General Ford Joined Lawsuit Challenging Trump Administration Rule That Would Make It Harder for Americans to Obtain Health Coverage Under the ACA

By the Trump Administration's own estimates, the rule will cause up to 1.8 million people to lose their health insurance

Carson City, NV —Today, Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford, announced that he joined a multistate coalition in filing a lawsuit challenging an unlawful final rule promulgated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that would create significant barriers to obtaining healthcare under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Trump Administration’s final rule would make numerous amendments to rules governing federal and state health insurance marketplaces which the administration estimates will cause up to 1.8 million people to lose their health insurance, while causing millions more to pay increased insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs like copays and deductibles. 

 

The final rule also excludes coverage of gender-affirming care as an essential health benefit (EHB) under the ACA. In the lawsuit, the attorneys general argue that the HHS and CMS rule is arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law, and violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The coalition is also seeking preliminary relief, and a stay, to prevent the challenged portions of the final rule from taking effect in the Plaintiff States before the August 25 effective date.

"This administration's rule would roll back years of progress in expanding healthcare access and threaten coverage for more than 100,000 Nevadans,” said AG Ford. “As attorney general I will not stand by while the Trump administration carries out these arbitrary barriers to deny our residents the affordable healthcare they depend on.

Congress enacted the ACA in 2010 to increase the number of Americans with health insurance and decrease the cost of healthcare. Fifteen years later, the Act continues to meet its goals, with annual enrollment on the ACA marketplace doubling over the past five years, resulting in over 24 million people signing up for health insurance coverage in plan year 2025 on the ACA exchanges and receiving subsidies to make such coverage affordable, including millions of people in the Plaintiff States. Now, with less than four months until open enrollment for plan year 2026 begins, the Trump Administration’s final rule would abruptly reverse that trend, erecting a series of new barriers to enrollment that will deprive up to 1.8 million people of insurance coverage by the Administration’s own estimates, and significantly drive up the costs incurred by Plaintiff States in providing healthcare, including increasing state expenditures on Medicaid, uncompensated emergency care, and funding other services provided to newly uninsured residents.

This year Nevada reached record setting enrollment with 110,000 ACA plan enrollees. The final rule by HHS would make substantial changes to the operation of the ACA marketplaces, including adding new bureaucratic barriers, imposing an automatic monthly charge on all automatically reenrolled consumers who qualify for $0 premiums, shortening the open enrollment period for signing up for health coverage, and making other changes which will make coverage less affordable for millions of individuals nationwide. With the changes from the final rule in place, those trends are likely to reverse, and our uninsured rate will grow. Additionally, as hospitals and other facilities like Federally-Qualified Health Centers are required to provide certain types of care to those without an ability to pay, their costs will rise along with the uninsured population increase.

In the lawsuit, the attorneys general argue that the HHS and CMS rule is unlawful, arbitrary and capricious, and would cause significant harm to states and their residents. All of the challenged marketplace changes implemented by the final rule will be harmful to individual consumers and state and local governments. The final rule imposes burdensome and costly paperwork requirements, limits the opportunities to sign up for health coverage, substantially increases cost-sharing limits, and forces exchanges and consumers to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to prove eligibility for coverage and subsidies. These changes will result in direct and immediate costs to states as well as harms tied to decreased enrollment.

In filing the lawsuit, Nevada Attorney General Ford joined attorneys general from California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

 
Review a copy of the plaintiff states' memo, complaint and preliminary injunction filings.

 

 

# # #