Category: Investigations

House Democrats argue in an amicus brief filed Monday that a lawsuit brought by House Republicans against the Obama administration over the Affordable Care Act should not have standing in court.

Led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, 11 top Democrats filed the brief arguing the dispute should not be settled in court, but that even if the case has standing, the Obama administration acted lawfully by reimbursing insurers for cost-sharing reductions under the Affordable Care Act.

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House lawmakers are angry that one of the last taxpayer-funded Obamacare plans wants to move to for-profit status, saying that the millions of dollars provided in startup loans were meant to go to nonprofits.

Republican leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee wrote to the Obama administration and the Maryland consumer-oriented and operated plan Evergreen Health, which wants to become a for-profit health insurer.

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WikiLeaks published a memo dated November 23, 2015 about serious problems with the Affordable Care Act from Chris Jennings, the former Deputy Assistant to President Obama for Health Policy, to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, the chairman of her campaign. Team Clinton’s private assessment of the problems bedeviling the ACA—that enrollment has fallen short of expectations, that the participant pool is much sicker than expected, and that the ACA’s risk corridor program lacks sufficient funds and authority to bail out participating insurers—markedly resembles that of skeptical outside analysts.

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House Republicans are wading into the heated legal battle between the White House and several insurers that claim they are owed money under ObamaCare.

The House GOP announced Friday it has filed a brief in a major ObamaCare lawsuit that involves a multibillion-dollar shortfall in a fund intended to cushion health insurers from financial losses under the law.

The $5 billion class-action lawsuit was filed by the now-shuttered insurance company called Health Republic of Oregon. It is one of about a dozen companies that have sued over the still-delayed payments, which they say crippled their businesses.

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More than 50 conservative groups are asking lawmakers to block payments to insurers under Obamacare they say would be a “bailout” of insurance companies.

The groups, which include Freedom Partners, Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform and Heritage Action, are calling on Congress in a Wednesday letter to block payments using taxpayer money from going to insurers under two Affordable Care Act programs.

The groups want Congress to recoup $5 billion they say was illegally given to insurance companies experiences greater losses than expected under the law’s reinsurance program and are urging lawmakers to pass a measure blocking future payments from a “Judgement Fund” to settle insurer lawsuits under the law’s risk corridor program.

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More than 50 fiscally conservative groups are asking Congress to prevent the Obama administration from giving insurers “bailouts” for their Obamacare losses.

Congress should take two steps toward that end, according to a letter sent Wednesday by Freedom Partners and dozens of other groups.

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A House Republican is circulating a letter among his colleagues urging Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to sue the Obama administration to prevent millions of dollars in legal settlements with ObamaCare insurers.

The letter from Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) says a lawsuit should be initiated to prevent a potential payout from an obscure legal fund at the Treasury Department.

Last week, the comptroller general — the government’s chief accountability officer — issued an official statement that the administration has been sending unlawful payments to insurance companies through the ACA’s reinsurance program. These payments have totaled $3 billion thus far and have forced taxpayers to finance a larger part of insurers’ most expensive enrollees’ claims.

The U.S. House of Representatives filed suit against the administration for unlawful payments through another ACA program. These payments are to insurers for them to make plans more attractive by reducing enrollees’ deductibles and cost-sharing amounts. Congress never appropriated funds, yet the administration has paid insurers at least $10 billion through this program thus far.

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Republicans in Congress are plotting ways to block the Obama administration from paying insurance companies hundreds of millions of dollars as part of an ObamaCare program.

GOP lawmakers say they are looking at “a dozen” options — including a possible provision in the year-end spending bill — to prevent the administration from using an obscure fund within the Treasury Department to pay out massive settlements to insurers.

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The Obama administration is seeking to toss out a pair of high-profile healthcare lawsuits in which insurers claim they are owed millions of dollars under the Affordable Care Act.

The two insurers, Moda Healthcare and BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina, have sued the federal government over a combined $338 million in ObamaCare payments they argue are overdue.

The Justice Department filed motions to dismiss both lawsuits on Friday, arguing that the federal government isn’t responsible for those payments at all.

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