The Founding Fathers of the United States didn’t just devise checks and balances between the various branches of the federal government. They encouraged the states to act as checks on federal power, too.

Now, some of them are exercising their powers — vigorously — to halt the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and gut Medicaid expansion. And, interestingly, many of the grassroots efforts to counteract Trump’s assault on the ACA have been bipartisan in origin.

“Several states are erecting barriers against rules the Trump administration is writing to promote short-term health plans,” the Washington Post‘s Amy Goldstein reported, “because they lack benefits and consumer protections guaranteed by the ACA.”

“Some states, led by Democrats and Republicans alike,” she noted, “are trying to slow insurance rate increases through methods that Congress considered but did not pass.”

Unfortunately, the federal government’s and states’ contradicting efforts are re-creating the “hodgepodge” health insurance landscape that the ACA was originally intended to fix.

Get the full story and analysis here, from the Washington Post.