Healthcare Insurance Companies Lose in Court on ACA Risk Corridor Program
Healthcare Insurers Lose in Court Over Risk Corridor Funds
I have written a couple of times about Sessions, Upton, Kingston, and Republicans sabotaging the ACA Risk Corridor Program with the insertion of Section 227 in the CRomnibus Bill signed in December 2014. Not only did Senator Sessions, Representative Upton (MI), and Representative Kingston (CO) block the funding of the Risk Corridor Program; with the insertion of Section 227 by Representative Kington, they blocked any transfer of funding from other programs as well. A rehash of the results of Republican sabotage shows, it caused a rise in premiums for the unsubsidized (others were picked up), Coops to go bankrupt, and insurance companies to withdraw from the healthcare exchanges.
Today a Federal Appeals Court ruled; “the U.S. government does not owe health insurers $billions in unpaid risk-corridor funds meant to offset losses during the early years (3 years) of the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
More than three dozen insurers claimed the federal government owed them more than $8 billion in risk corridor payments. Ruling 2-1 the COA determined the payments were not necessary since Congress deemed the program had to be budget neutral after the legislation was passed.”
In other words, the court decided a different Congress and/or the administration made up of different political interests can change the intent of another Congress or Administration.
A similar Risk Corridor Program exists in the Medicare Part D program for drugs which has no life time limit and was put in place by Republicans and Bush to cover any risk which may occur from getting too many higher cost insured.
by run75441 (Bill H)
The sad thing is that when the costs increase for individuals, it’s going to be difficult to get voters to realize that the increases are due to Republican actions rather than defects in the ACA itself as Republicans will claim.
Jack:
This is old news and occurred in 2015. The individuals healthcare market with incomes greater than 400% FPL are the ones who get hit with this increase. The ones less than 400% FPL or on Medicare are spared. It accounts for about 11 million individuals.
What about the pressure on the insurers to withdraw from ACA because of underwriting losses?
Jack:
They plus Coops already left or went bankrupt. I wrote about this here: http://angrybearblog.com/2017/01/why-healthcare-premiums-are-increasing-faster-than-healthcare-costs.html, here; http://angrybearblog.com/2017/10/what-is-the-matter-with-the-iowa-aca.html, here; http://angrybearblog.com/2017/01/paul-ryan-can-not-take-the-truth-so-he-hides-it-with-legislation.html, here; etc. Google Angry Bear and Risk Corridors. I am sure I have mentioned this umpteen times.