Letter: Get the facts straight on Trump, ACA subsidies
Once again the AP reports in an inaccurate and misleading manner with its article “Health order hits Trump’s voters hardest” (Oct. 15).
The very first sentence, “President Donald Trump’s decision to end a provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that was benefiting roughly 6 million Americans …” is factually wrong. Trump has not decided to end a provision of the ACA, but rather to end sending ACA Section 1402 subsidy dollars to insurance companies because no money has been appropriated for these subsidies. Trump has no Constitutional authority to unilaterally “end” a provision of the ACA or any other federal law.
What is so misleading about the AP’s article is that there is no hint about a major issue related to this matter, namely that a federal district court determined in May 2016 that Congress had not appropriated money for these Section 1402 subsidies, therefore per the Constitution (Article I, Section 9) spending federal dollars for insurance company subsidies is unlawful. And so far, there is still no appropriation of money for this purpose.
The writers of the article are either ignorant of the facts, or more interested in writing scary stuff about Trump.
Richard Engelmann, Richland
This story was originally published October 25, 2017 at 4:43 PM with the headline "Letter: Get the facts straight on Trump, ACA subsidies."