It’s been fascinating to the watch the narrative take shape since President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order Thursday ending the subsidies to insurance companies under Obamacare. There’s some question whether the payments were even legal — Congress was not involved in the appropriation of the funds used for these payouts to insurers, leading AG Sessions to send a legal opinion to the Departments of Health and Human Services and Treasury as justification for demanding the payments stop.

The Wall Street Journal puts it in no uncertain terms:

The payments are illegal. The Affordable Care Act leaves the subsidies contingent on an annual appropriation, but since 2014 Congress has declined to dedicate the funding. The Obama Administration wrote the checks anyway, and the House of Representatives sued. Federal Judge Rosemary Collyer last year ruled that the Obama Administration had violated the Constitution, and an appeal is pending.

And, with respect to the WSJ, the word I keep seeing is “undermine.”

From the LA Times: “Trump plans to halt subsidies to health insurers, further undermining Obamacare”

The New York Daily News: “President Trump’s unhealthy obsession with undermining Obamacare”

From the Washington Post: “These are the steps the Trump administration is taking to undermine the ACA”

The Huffington Post: “Friday’s Morning Email: Here’s How Trump Is Undermining Obamacare”

Is “undermine” worse than sabotage?

The choice of language is fascinating. It’s as if all the left-leaning news outlets had a conference call and decided on “undermine” as the appropriate word to describe ending payouts to insurance companies (which is why those insurance companies bought into the entire Obamacare canard, by the way. Something that would spell their doom under a system that was designed ultimately to utilize a single healthcare insurance provider alone. There have a been a lot of industries shooting themselves in the foot lately for progressive policies. The NFL comes to mind. I digress.)

Anyway, whether undermining or sabotaging, Trump’s healthcare EO has the left freaking out. Several states are already suing.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Friday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to block the president’s plan to end federal subsidies that are considered to be a critical component of Obamacare.

Becerra and attorneys general from 17 other states announced the lawsuit a day after the Trump administration declared that it would withhold cost-sharing subsidies that help low- and middle-income people pay for health care coverage under his predecessor’s signature law. Becerra called the order an attempt to “sabotage” Obamacare.

“Undermining the Affordable Care Act has been Donald Trump’s and many Republicans’ plans for a long time,” Becerra said. “It’s long past time that President Trump learned that he doesn’t get to just pick and choose which laws he’ll follow, and which bills he’ll pay.”

There’s that word again. Honestly, even if I didn’t know the decision has the potential to free the market to start offering insurance with less government regulation, and that this will lead to increased competition that will lower prices, the freakout from the left makes me think it was absolutely the right decision.