President Donald Trump’s administration went to the courts to take down the Affordable Care Act, but The Washington Post reports that the administration initially planned on defending it.
Although the White House hasn’t defended the law in a lawsuit filed by Texas and other Republican-led states, two different options were being considered as recently as last March: to side with the GOP states filing the lawsuit trying to have the ACA struck down, or with California and other Democratic-led states that backed the law.
“Folks thought the current posture in court wasn’t the best posture,” an unnamed senior administration official told the Post. “The question was then put to the president: Do you want to side with Texas or California? It’s pretty simple to see where he’d come down on that.”
The Justice Department eventually argued that the ACA ought to be invalidated in its entirety after previously taking a more moderate stance, siding with the GOP in striking down consumer protections even for those with preexisting conditions, but not in overturning the rest of the law.
According to unnamed former and current administration officials, the decision to change the official stance came from director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, who is now also the acting White House chief of staff, his deputy, Russ Vought, and the head of the Domestic Policy Council, Joe Grogan.
The Post notes that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma, as well as other HHS officials, wanted the administration to side with the ACA, but Vought, Grogan and Mulvaney convinced Trump while Azar was on vacation in March.
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