More than a dozen Senate Republicans today asked House Speaker John Boehner to stop the Obama administration from bailing out health insurance companies that participate in Obamacare.
In a letter to the top House Republican, 13 fellow Republicans joined Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida to preempt unlawful spending by the administration using a provision of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.
“We write to you out of concern the administration is planning to spend appropriated and unauthorized funds through Obamacare’s risk corridor program,” wrote the senators –who include Pat Roberts of Kansas, facing a tough challenge Nov. 4 from independent candidate Greg Orman.
14 Republican senators are calling on @SpeakerBoehner to prohibit the Obama administration from bailing out health insurance companies.
Because spending bills originate in the House, funds for a bailout of insurance companies would fall under the lower chamber’s jurisdiction. In December, Boehner will have the House consider another continuing resolution to fund the government.
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The Obama administration designed the “risk corridor” initiative to address the potential risk to insurance companies of excess losses, or profits, as the providers price premiums amid uncertainties in implementation of Obamacare.
Under the law, the federal government would distribute money from insurance companies that earned excess profits to those that had excess losses. However, Rubio and his colleagues contend that more companies are likely to experience losses than gains — putting taxpayers on the hook for a bailout of companies that participate in Obamacare’s online exchanges or marketplaces.
“[T]he risk corridors subsidize and redistribute collections to health insurance companies that lose money,” the GOP senators wrote.
A report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee concluded that the majority of participating insurers companies expect to receive taxpayers’ money to compensate for losses–a receipt approaching $1 billion.
“Given the uncertainty that insurers faced in pricing the new coverage, combined with pressure on them from the administration to keep premiums low, the risk-corridor program is more likely to result in additional federal outlays than in additional federal receipts,” Ed Haislmaier, a health policy expert at The Heritage Foundation, told the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July. He continued:
This is the source of the concern expressed in Congress and elsewhere that the risk-corridor program could become a taxpayer-funded bailout for insurers selling coverage in the exchange.
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Although the Obama administration contends that collections of excess profits are designated as “user fees,” the Government Accountability Office last month concluded the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Obamacare, would need additional appropriations from Congress. If the administration were to spend money covering insurance companies’ losses, it would be illegal, GAO said.
The 14 senators wrote to Boehner:
The American people expect us, as members of Congress, to fulfill our oath of office and defend the Constitution. Therefore, we must act to protect Congress’s power of the purse and prohibit the Obama administration from dispersing unlawful risk corridor payments providing for an Obamacare taxpayer bailout.
”The American people expect us, as members of Congress, to fulfill our Oath of Office and defend the Constitution,” 14 GOP senators to @SpeakerBoehner.
Should Boehner withhold such appropriations from the budget of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the HHS division that administers Obamacare, an attempt to bail out health insurance companies could be stymied. The Rubio letter continues:
Unfortunately, President Obama and his administration have exhibited their intent to disregard the law and ignore the Constitution. At the Constitutional Convention, our nation’s founders debated ways to ensure that the executive would not spend money without congressional authorization. … The president intends to ignore Congress’s explicit and exclusive authority by spending money on the risk corridor program without an appropriation from Congress.
In addition to Roberts, the other Republican senators joining Rubio in signing the letter were John Barrasso of Wyoming, Mike Lee of Utah, David Vitter of Louisiana, Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, John McCain of Arizona, John Boozman of Arkansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
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