Category: Investigations

A few weeks back, I noted that a judge had ruled against the Obama administration in a dispute over health-insurance subsidies. Some background: Obamacare makes insurers reduce out of pocket costs, like deductibles, to low-income people who purchase qualifying plans; the government is supposed to reimburse the companies directly. However, Congress didn’t appropriate any money to pay for these subsidies. When the administration went ahead and paid the insurers anyway — distributing about $7 billion without congressional approval — House lawmakers sued.

Now it appears that House Republicans, and Judge Rosemary Collyer, aren’t the only folks who thought the administration’s actions were questionable. A report in the New York Times this weekend says that IRS officials raised concerns that the administration had no legal authority to spend the money.

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House Republicans and the Obama administration are clashing over subpoenas for ObamaCare documents. Republicans are upping the pressure on the administration, saying officials are withholding documents that Congress has every right to see.

At issue are two separate portions of ObamaCare. One is the Basic Health Program, which states can choose to implement and is aimed at providing choices for low-income people with slightly too much income to qualify for Medicaid. The other is the law’s “cost-sharing reductions” which are payments that help lower out-of pocket-costs for low-income ObamaCare enrollees.

“Your refusal to provide the requested documents and information raises serious concerns about the Department’s willingness to be accountable for the lawful execution of laws passed by Congress,” Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton and House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell on Tuesday.

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Yesterday, the New York Times detailed the highly irregular manner preceding the administration’s decision to make the CSR payments once Congress refused to grant the White House’s request for an appropriation. Despite strong disagreements over the legality of these payments among IRS employees, top political appointees with the administration, including then-Attorney General Eric Holder and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, signed off.

At a congressional deposition, David Fisher, an IRS financial risk officer at the time, testified that the process behind the authorization of the CSR payments was unusual. Moreover, he testified that the “cost-sharing reduction payments are not linked to the Internal Revenue Code, as far as I could tell, directly anywhere. There is no linkage to the permanent appropriation, nor is there any link to any other appropriation that was indicating what account these funds should be paid from.”

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House Republicans say that the Obama administration is ignoring subpoenas for documents related to ObamaCare spending they call illegal.

The House Oversight Committee released a report Wednesday detailing extreme misconduct surrounding Oregon’s failed $305 million taxpayer funded Obamacare exchange and is calling on the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation.

“The documents and testimony show Oregon State officials misused $305 million of federal funds and improperly coordinated with former Governor John Kitzhaber’s campaign advisers.  Official decisions were made primarily for political purposes.  Cover Oregon was established as an independent organization by the legislature, and was not intended to be a wholly controlled subsidiary of the Governor’s political apparatus,” House Oversight Committee Chairman wrote in a letter sent to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum.

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The numbers are staggering — and taxpayers, you’re footing the bill.

A new investigation has turned up more evidence that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service unlawfully diverted $3.5 billion from taxpayers to the Affordable Care Act exchange insurers.

The notion of diverted money came up earlier this year, when the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service issued a memo claiming that distributing the money to insurers instead of the U.S. Treasury violated the ACA. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell contended that her agency and the CMS had the statutory authority to defer payments to insurers.

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The Obama Administration is unlawfully diverting billions of dollars from taxpayers to insurance companies that sell Obamacare policies.

That is the conclusion reached in a legal opinion letter released today by former Ambassador and White House Counsel Boyden Gray.

Mr. Gray’s letter reinforces the conclusion of legal experts at the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service who found that the administration’s actions “would appear to be in conflict with the plain text” of the Obamacare statute.

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Oracle has had enough of Oregon. The business technology giant has decided it will no longer take on new business with the state’s government amid an ongoing legal battle, Oracle senior vice president Ken Glueck told Fortune on Wednesday.

The decision follows a protracted legal tussle between the two parties over a disastrous state healthcare enrollment website that never came online. In 2011, Oregon enlisted Oracle to build a healthcare exchange website related to Obamacare after being impressed by the company’s sales pitch, according to a previous legal filing.

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The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) says the proposals of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders would add $19 trillion to the debt — an increase from its previous estimate.

In an analysis published in April, the CRFB estimated that the Independent senator’s proposals would add $2 trillion to $15 trillion to the debt, depending on the cost of Sanders’s single-payer healthcare plan. Since then, two new independent analyses have found that the healthcare plan “would cost dramatically more than the campaign-provided estimates suggest,” the CRFB said Thursday in its updated analysis.

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Top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters this week seeking more information about the financial status of the 11 remaining co-ops created under the Affordable Care Act.

Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) say they want to better understand the financial challenges the co-ops are facing and ensure the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is taking the “necessary and appropriate steps” to keep the co-ops functioning. The agency has placed eight of the remaining co-ops on corrective action plans, and 12 had closed by the start of 2016.

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