A federal judge has blocked multiple provisions of the Trump administration’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) overhaul from taking effect Monday as scheduled.
The plaintiffs, including multiple large cities like Baltimore and Columbus, Ohio, as well as organizations like the Main Street Alliance, sued in an attempt to block the regulations in early July, arguing they could lead 1.8 million or more people to lose coverage and drive up premiums and out-of-pocket costs.
The lawsuit challenges the rule as a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalized the rule in June with the goal of reducing improper enrollments on the ACA’s exchanges by eliminating special enrollment periods that allowed people earning 150% or less of the federal poverty level to secure coverage.
The agency said these windows allow insurance brokers to unlawfully enroll people in ACA coverage or switch them to different plans to secure higher commissions.
Judge Brendan Hurson, of the Maryland District Court, determined that the plaintiffs presented enough evidence to suggest they would prevail in a legal challenge to seven of the rule’s provisions, while they were less likely to succeed in challenging two other elements.
Given that high likelihood of success, Hurson granted an injunction Friday that bars these elements from taking effect until the case can be heard. That includes a $5 premium penalty on auto-enrollments as well as a policy that would disqualify individuals from advanced subsidies if they didn’t file income taxes or did not reconcile their tax credits in previous years.
The ruling also pauses the rollout of new calculations around plan tiers and requirements for pre-enrollment eligibility checks for the special enrollment periods.
Changes under the rule that were not blocked included a shorted open enrollment period on the exchanges.
Hurson also adds that limiting the injunction to merely the plaintiff cities and organizations would be “impractical.”
“The complicated interplay between the ACA and numerous market actors would make it exceedingly difficult if the challenged provisions went into effect for some of the population served by the exchange but were stayed as to others,” he wrote in the opinion.
The plaintiffs celebrated the court win and said they would continue to push back against the rule.
“Today’s decision is a positive step to block the Trump-Vance administration’s bad deal that jacks up costs and guts healthcare coverage for millions of working people and families,” Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein said in a statement on Friday. “We will continue to leverage every legal tool we have to protect access to quality, affordable healthcare for every American.”