Trump Wins Ruling in Effort to Undo Obamacare

meet the standards of the Affordable Care Act. Joining me as Timothy Jos, professor at Washington n Ley School of Law, explain what these short term health insurance policies are and

why they don't meet the standards of Obamacare. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act back in impose some regulations on the individual health insurance market, but excluded what it referred to a short term, limited duration health plans, and when the a c A was adopted in two thousand and ten, it carried over the definition of individual health insurance coverage and thus implicitly that exclusion of these plans.

The Obama administration and two thousand and fifteen I believe adopted a regulation that would limit them to three months non renewable, and the Trump administration then last year expanded them so that they can now extend up to three and sixty four days or at least less than a year, and can be renewed for up to three years. And the reason for doing that, it explained, was to create

an alternative to the individual health insurance market. And the plaintiffs in this case in the d C. District Court sued claiming that that's exactly what Congress didn't want. That they wanted to get all of individual health insurance coverage into the a C, A comply and more market with its consumer protections. So that's what the case was about. Did the federal judge, Judge Richard Leon Bases ruling on

the impact of these policies on the whole of Obamacare. No, he simply held, and held it in a number of different ways, that the term short term limited duration was not defined in the law, and therefore the Department of Health and Human Services could define it anyway at once too, And so he said that they had acted within their discretion in defining it in this way. So what are the concerns of the plaintiffs about having these short term

health insurance policies available. Well, I think there are two concerns. One is that the policies themselves have some very serious drawbacks. They don't cover pre existing conditions, they have annual in lifetime limits, which are prohibited under the Affordable Care Act, many of them have very high deductibles, and they don't offer much protection to consumers. A second problem is that the theory is that healthy people will purchase these policies

and leave the individual health insurance market. And in fact, the Department admitted in its preface to the regulations that a million people could do that. It could be much more than that. And if healthy people leave the a regulated individual insurance market, that's going to drive up premiums for everyone left behind, those people with pre existing conditions. A third problem actually is the market any of these products.

They are pushed very hard. People that are listeners may have gotten calls urging them to purchase these kinds of policies. They're pushed very hard by brokers, by websites, and it's often very unclear either they're a compliant or not, and people who are looking for a c a compliance policies

are often steered to these products. So now other federal judges have rejected some of the Trump administration's sort of and runs around Obamacare, for example, the rule permitting small businesses to join together to offer plans exempt from the rules. So how much does this particular judges ruling advance the president's effort to undo Obamacare. Well, I think it is

a very significant ruling. Of course, the biggest case pending right now is the case in New Orleans and the Fifth Circuit that would completely destroy the Affordable Care Act

and all of its provisions. But I think this is a very important case because the short term limited duration plans, I think are for many people the most immediately available alternative to a see A compliant policies and will probably have the greatest impact on increasing premiums for people who have to remain in the a c A compliant market. We assume that the case you were talking about the Federal Appeals Court in New Orleans that will end up

at the Supreme Court. Are these cases where the judges are ruling on certain rules that the Trump administration put forth, are they likely to end up at the Supreme Court as well? They could end up at the Supreme Court. I think that they're less likely to because they have less of an impact then the case in New Orleans, but they certainly could end up in the Supreme Court. Right now, they're both headed for the d C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and uh, I think that they could

very likely end up there. We've talked before about that case. The Federal Appeals Court is considering weighing request to overrule a Texas judges decision late last year to strike down Obamacare, and it's entirely now that there have been oral arguments. Do you still feel that the Texas judge really was out of bounds in doing that? Oh? Absolutely, I mean, and people across the political spectrum, including for example, Senator Collins, have said that the decision was contrary to the law

and often have said that it's absurd. But I've listened to the oral argument, and it's not at all clear that the majority of the judges and the Fifth Circuit will we'll go along with that. There's a chance that at least part of his ruling is going to be upheld. They were very enlightening, Thank you so much, as you are as well. That's Professor Timothy just of the Washington and Lee School of Law. Thanks for listening to the

Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple pod podcast, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg m