ICYMI: Washington Post: California's Attorney General Wants to Enforce the Nation's Health-care Laws

By Paige Winfield Cunningham

He’s already a thorn in the side of the Trump administration. But California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is getting even more aggressive in challenging how the president and his appointees are tackling a range of health-related controversies.

The former chairman of the House Democratic Caucus — who has since forged a reputation as perhaps this administration’s most persistent legal hound — said in a meeting with a group of Washington Post reporters yesterday that he is launching a  strike force aimed at enforcing federal health-care laws around access and delivery in California. It’s a necessary project, Becerra said, considering how massive and far-reaching the health-care industry has grown.

“The health-care market’s roughly one-sixth of our economy and there’s a growing need to enforce laws in this area — the team we’re building will focus on tackling this,” Becerra said.

The new strike force, staffed so far by five attorneys and one supervisor, will keep working on several health-related lawsuits filed by the the Golden State while also homing in on a few newer issues, including a possible challenge to President Trump’s recent move to expand association health plans.

The strike force is also looking into how it could get involved in several other pressing health-care issues, including price fixing of generic drugs, consolidation in the health-care market, protecting medical privacy and going after opioid makers.

Read the full article here.