Trump said he would let the Affordable Care Act
"explode" after Republicans failed last month to pass their own
repeal bill in Congress, and told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that he
may withhold billions of dollars of payments to insurers to force Democrats to
negotiate on healthcare.
Public statements like that led to judges blocking Trump's
proposed travel bans earlier this year, and could prove to be one line of
attack in legal attempts to protect the healthcare bill, according to a handful
of liberal US lawyers and state attorneys general. They said they are waiting
to see what action the administration ultimately takes on the healthcare law
before they will officially respond.
Massachusetts Attorney General Healey said Trump is legally
bound to enforce the ACA. But his words make it clear he is willing to sabotage
it, in her view.
"He is intent on setting the dynamite and blowing this
up," Healey told Reuters.
She said it is too early to speculate about specific legal
action but said Trump's remarks about the law "suggest he is out there not
just hoping that it fails but working to see it fail."
I hadn't heard of the "take care clause," but I like the idea. And I like the idea that Trump's mouth is being held against him.
One such legal challenge being discussed is suing the Trump
administration for failing to abide by the "take care clause," which
requires that the president faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress,
according to Deepak Gupta, a Washington lawyer who often works on public
interest cases.
"That the president is operating in good faith … is
pretty critical to how the law works. That good faith is legitimately in
question," he said.
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