Chip Bok's Bokbluster

Last week President Trump issued an executive order rolling back President Obama’s executive order to subsidize insurance companies. The subsidies reimburse the companies for reducing certain out-of-pocket expenses to policy holders.

The only problem is Congress refused to appropriate money for the subsidies. So Obama whipped out his pen and phone and and started spending the money anyway. And Trump continued that practice. But a federal district court judge says that’s illegal.

Insurance Companies’ Very Bad Week

This week two Republican senators, Tom Cotton and Pat Toomey, introduced a bill to to partially end the individual mandate, no longer requiring some people to buy health insurance.

Yesterday two more Senators, Republican Lamar Alexander and Democrat Patty Murray, made a deal to keep the subsidies alive. Trump said nice things about it last night but withdrew support today.

Time.com tries to explain what’s going here.