On July 31, 2026, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport co-led a coalition of 21 attorneys general and the governor of Pennsylvania challenging a federal rule that undermines the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and that would make health insurance more expensive and harder to obtain for millions of Americans.  

Congress enacted the ACA to expand access to affordable health insurance, and more than 23 million Americans currently receive coverage through its marketplaces. Every year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) establishes rules for how ACA marketplaces should operate, including enrollment requirements, income verification, and cost limits for consumers.    

In May 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and CMS issued a rule that sets standards for health plans offered in 2027. The proposed changes would create new administrative and financial burdens for people trying to get or keep health coverage through the ACA marketplace, including the same provisions a federal court already deemed illegal. The rule imposes onerous new application and income-verification requirements for people seeking to enroll in health coverage, seeks to dramatically increase the number of people who will obtain barebones “catastrophic” insurance plans, and allows insurers to charge consumers more than federal law permits in out-of-pocket costs. onto 

The plaintiff states estimate that these additional hurdles would result in five million people losing access to affordable healthcare coverage by 2030.   

The coalition argues these and other provisions unlawfully undermine the ACA’s goal of expanding access to affordable healthcare by increasing costs, reducing enrollment, and shifting financial burdens onto consumers, states and healthcare providers. A federal court already struck down nearly identical provisions in 2025 after finding that federal officials offered no evidence to justify them.  The attorneys general are asking the court to invalidate the unlawful provisions and block the administration from enforcing them.  

The Affordable Care Act was designed to make healthcare more affordable and accessible. But once again, this Administration is moving in the wrong direction by adopting harmful provisions that push consumers into bare-bones plans and strip away critical protections. We are returning to court to challenge these unlawful changes. At a time when families are already facing rising costs, they cannot afford to pay more for coverage that gives them less.Attorney General Rob Bonta