Press Release  AG Healey Announces Major Victory Over Trump Administration’s Attempt to Sabotage Affordable Care Act

Boston — Attorney General Maura Healey today announced a win in a lawsuit by 12 state attorneys general led by Massachusetts and New York that challenged the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Association Health Plan (AHP) rule, which would allow business associations to market low-quality, limited coverage health insurance plans without the protections for consumers in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

“This rule was another attempt by the Trump Administration to sabotage the Affordable Care Act and take away health care for millions of Americans,” said AG Healey. “My office is committed to high-quality, comprehensive health insurance for all.”

The court ruled that DOL’s new rule violated federal law, calling the rule “clearly an end-run around the ACA” designed specifically to avoid the guaranteed health care protections contained in the ACA. This victory comes just days after the Trump Administration expanded its attack on the ACA telling a federal court that it should strike down the entire law. AG Healey this week joined a coalition of 21 attorneys general in filing a brief defending the ACA and the health care of millions of Americans in the appeal of a December 2018 ruling in Texas v. U.S.

The AHP lawsuit, filed in July 2018, asked the court to block efforts by the Trump Administration to undercut the ACA using the AHP rule. The lawsuit argued the rule would undermine federal consumer protections in the ACA, invite fraud, mismanagement, and deception in the health insurance market, and unduly expand access to AHPs without sufficient justification or consideration of the consequences. 

By broadening the availability of AHPs, DOL intended to lure millions of enrollees into large group markets, to which the ACA’s core protections do not apply. AHPs created under the DOL’s rule would lack the basic market incentives and statutory protections to offer quality health insurance that apply to large employers, resulting in plans with less coverage and fewer benefits than Congress required by enacting the ACA.

The DOL’s final rule illegally redefined “employer” to expand the class of “large employers” under the ACA to include associations made up of separate and unrelated employers and sole proprietors with no employees. It also allowed such associations to be formed for the primary purpose of selling insurance, which the court found unlawful. 

Joining Massachusetts and New York in this suit were state attorneys general from California, Delaware, District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington. 

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