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Federal Judge Rejects MD Challenge to Trump Admin. in ACA Case

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BALTIMORE (AP) - A federal judge has dismissed a Maryland lawsuit against President Donald Trump's administration for what it portrayed as recurring efforts to dismantle the national health care law.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander writes in her Friday decision that there's no question about Trump's deep disdain for the Affordable Care Act. But she found the state's allegations "speculative."

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh had sought a declaratory judgment that ACA was constitutional and the Trump administration must stop trying to "sabotage" the Obama-era law.

But Hollander ruled that neither Trump's "zealous attempts to repeal the statute, nor his derisive comments about it, support an inference that he will fail to enforce the law."

She ruled that Maryland is entitled to revive the litigation at a later date.

Don Rush is the News Director and Senior Producer of News and Public Affairs at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.