Attorney General Becerra: Let's Work on Improving Health Care, Move Forward 

Friday, July 28, 2017
Contact: (916) 210-6000, agpressoffice@doj.ca.gov

SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra issued the following statement after Senate Republicans once again failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and rip away healthcare from 16 million seniors, people with disabilities, women, children and working families in California and across the country. 

"It’s time to stop playing politics with people's healthcare and instead start working on making care more affordable and accessible, like we've done in California,” said Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “The Republican proposals, which increased costs and reduced coverage, weren’t the only threats to Americans’ healthcare. President Trump continues to threaten to sabotage the ACA by ending subsidies that help working families afford their premiums, co-payments and co-insurance in their health plans. We can’t move forward to reassure American families that their healthcare is safe and stable until all of this political game-playing ends.”                                                    

BACKGROUND:

On May 18, Attorney General Becerra took legal action to challenge the Trump Administration and protect health care access for millions of Americans, including more than five million Californians. He is leading 17 attorneys general in seeking to intervene in a lawsuit filed by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives that undercuts the affordability of health insurance plans under the ACA. The Republican bills before the Senate this past week would have completely repealed critical cost-sharing subsidies.

House Republicans, in their lawsuit against the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Secretary of the Treasury during the Obama Administration, challenged the legality of providing cost-sharing subsidies that make health insurance premiums, co-payments and co-insurance affordable for families. With the departure of President Obama, the Trump Administration is now in charge of defending this case. Attorney General Becerra and his colleagues filed their motion to intervene in this case to ensure that the cost-sharing subsidies in the ACA were vigorously defended in court. 

On July 17, 2017 the coalition of Attorney Generals, filed a response brief to the U.S. Department of Justice and House Republicans' request to the D.C. Court of Appeals to deny the motion to intervene in the lawsuit House v. Price. Without intervention from the attorneys general, millions of working families may be at risk of losing financial support from the ACA to lower their health care costs.

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