Supreme Court to Hear Insurers' Plea for $12B in ACA Program Payments

In reality, thriving issuers have made only enough payments for the program managers, at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to meet only a small portion of the program obligations for 2014.

When Republicans took control of the House, and later the Senate, they put provisions in must-pass spending authorization bills that prohibited HHS from using any source of cash other than exchange plan issuer payments to meet the risk corridors program obligations.

ACA opponents argued that the ACA risk corridors program and the two other ACA insurer subsidy programs were efforts to funnel cash from a bad, unconstitutional program to insurers.

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), for example, called the ACA insurer subsidy programs a form of corporate welfare. The programs were "created to hide the true costs of coverage on the exchange and prop up insurers by redistributing funds from different groups to Obamacare exchanges," according to an article ATR analysts posted in 2016.

Lawyers for the United States have argued that the health insurers participating in the ACA public exchange program had an agreement with the federal government in connection with the risk corridors program, but not a formal contract.

Health insurers have argued that they believed that they had what amounted to a contract, and that Congress should not be able to back away from payment obligations the federal government has assumed by simply refusing to provide money to make the payments, without passing a law canceling the obligations.

The Supreme Court Proceedings

Noel Francisco, the U.S. solicitor general, has been serving as the counsel of record for the United States for the ACA risk corridors appeals.

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association has been supporting the plaintiff health insurers in all three cases.

Moda Health is the health insurer with the longest list of "other" parties associated with its case.

The list of parties officially listed as being associated with the Moda Health case includes America's Health Insurance Plans; the Association for Community Affiliated Plans; a group of health plans that includes Highmark Inc.; the National Association of Insurance Commissioners; a group of 18 states and the District of Columbia; a group of economists; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Resources

A copy of the Supreme Court's order list document is available here.

A copy of the Maine Community Health Options petition is available here.

— Read Two Judges Blast USA in Risk Corridors Appeal Dissents, on ThinkAdvisor.

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