Category: Investigations

Federal auditors ruled on Thursday that the Obama administration had violated the law by paying health insurance companies more than allowed under the Affordable Care Act in an effort to hold down insurance premiums.

Some of the money was supposed to be deposited in the Treasury, said auditors from the Government Accountability Office.

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We keep reading that Donald Trump poses a unique threat to constitutional norms if he’s elected. His liberal critics would have more credibility if they called out the ObamaAdministration for its current (not potential) abuses of power, and here’s an opportunity: The Administration is crafting an illegal bailout to prop up the President’s health-care law.

News leaked this week that the Obama Administration is moving to pay health insurers billions of dollars through an obscure Treasury Department account known as the Judgment Fund.

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It never rains that it doesn’t pour. Even as nonpartisan experts at the Government Accountability Office concluded that the Obama administration broke the law with Obamacare’s reinsurance program, the Washington Post reported the administration could within weeks pay out a massive settlement to insurers through another Obamacare slush fund—this one, risk corridors.

The Post article quoted Republicans criticizing risk corridor “bailouts.” But in reality, the Obama administration itself has admitted using risk corridors as a bailout mechanism—trying to pay insurers to offset the costs of unilateral policy changes made to get President Obama out of a political jam.

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The Obama administration is illegally refusing to make payments to the U.S. Treasury and instead is giving funds collected under Obamacare to insurers, according to a new report from an independent government watchdog, the Government Accountability Office. The funds in question were collected as part of Obamacare’s reinsurance program, and the GAO confirmed that under law, part of the money collected must be deposited into federal coffers, not sent to insurers to prop up ObamaCare.

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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) administers the 3-year transitional reinsurance program established under section 1341 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The program, which is financed by statutorily required contributions from participating health insurance issuers and group health plans, makes payments to eligible issuers, to stabilize health insurance premiums and encourage issuer participation in the health insurance markets. Section 1341 designates a specified amount of collections from issuers for reinsurance payments and also directs the deposit of a specified amount of collections in the general fund of the United States Treasury (Treasury). HHS asserts that when collections fall short of the amounts specified in statute the agency has authority to allocate all collections for reinsurance payments, making deposits in the Treasury only if collections reach the amounts specified for reinsurance payments in section 1341. HHS lacks authority to ignore the statute’s directive to deposit amounts from collections under the transitional reinsurance program in the Treasury and is required to collect and deposit amounts for the Treasury, regardless of whether its collections fall short of the amounts specified in statute for reinsurance payments. HHS may not use amounts collected for the Treasury to make reinsurance payments.

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The Obama administration failed to follow the president’s health care law in a $5 billion dispute over compensating insurers for high costs from seriously ill patients, Congress’ investigative arm said Thursday.

The opinion from the Government Accountability Office is a setback for the White House and bolsters Republican complaints that administration officials bent the law as problems arose carrying out its complex provisions. The finding may complicate efforts to stabilize premiums in the law’s insurance marketplaces, where about 11 million people get coverage.

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Vermont did not properly allocate millions of dollars in federal grants when establishing its marketplace created under the Affordable Care Act, a report released Tuesday by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General said.

Vermont’s Agency of Human Services did not always follow federal requirements for allocating costs to establishment grants to establish its marketplace or for drawing down establishment grant funds, the report says.

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Medicaid expansion will not cure hospitals’ financial woes, according to a report released by the Congressional Budget Office. To put it bluntly, hospitals made a horrible deal by endorsing Obamacare in 2009. They agreed to annual reductions in their Medicare payments forever in exchange for a one-time increase in the number of insured patients. But Medicaid’s payment rates are below hospitals’ average costs, [and] the use of hospitals’ services among the newly insured will increase by about 40 percent as a result of having insurance.” If Medicaid pays hospitals less than their average costs, then inducing additional patient demand by expanding coverage could actually exacerbate hospitals’ shortfalls, not improve them.

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Legislative auditors said Wednesday they can’t confirm that the Medicaid application backlog numbers state officials have reported are correct.

Applications have been backlogged for about a year following the rocky rollout of a new computer system, an administrative decision that funneled all applications through a single state agency and a larger-than-expected influx of applications during the Affordable Care Act open enrollment period.

The auditors said the Kansas Department of Health and Environment gets the backlog number from Accenture, the contractor that built the new software platform known as the Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System, or KEES.
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A post-election fight about giving extra money to Obamacare insurance plans is brewing on Capitol Hill, following a summer of bad news for insurers. The conservative group Freedom Partners launched a campaign Thursday aimed at blocking an “insurer bailout,” which some fear is poised to occur in the final months of the Obama administration. The group is launching a website, BustTheBailouts.com, which it says will provide information to taxpayers and lawmakers about how insurers are lobbying for a bailout. They will also launch a series of videos and meet with lawmakers to advocate their cause.

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