WASHINGTON, DC - House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) today sent letters to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew regarding payments the administration has made to insurance companies under the health care law from a fund intended for tax refunds after the administration requested - but did not receive from Congress - an appropriation of funding. The health law’s cost-sharing reduction program has already paid $2.7 billion of taxpayer dollars to insurance companies under Section 1402 of the health care law, despite lacking the legal authority to make these payments.
Upton and Ryan explain, “Congress has never appropriated any funds to permit the administration to make any Section 1402 Offset Program payments to insurance companies. … In short, we are concerned that the administration is unlawfully and unconstitutionally misusing the permanent appropriation intended only to pay for tax refunds due under the [Internal Revenue Code] to make Section 1402 Offset Program Payments to insurance companies."
Upton and Ryan ask Secretaries Burwell and Lew under what authority the administration made the decision to make these payments without an appropriation and how much HHS has directed Treasury to give to insurance companies under this program.
Read the complete letters online here.
