WASHINGTON, DC - Despite the Obama administration’s continued failure to provide basic information into the Transitional Reinsurance Program, House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders are offering a final opportunity to cooperate. The committee has been investigating the administration’s illegal diversion of billions of taxpayer dollars to insurance companies to prop up Obamacare. Today’s letter threatens compulsory process if the agencies do not comply after multiple requests for information.
In the letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt, full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), Health Subcommittee Chairman Joseph Pitts (R-PA), and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (R-PA) write, “The Administration’s decision to divert payments intended for the U.S. Treasury to insurance companies contradicts past rules issued by the Administration and the clear intent of Congress."
Members of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee pressed CMS Acting Administrator Slavitt about the payments at an April 15, 2016, hearing. The leaders continued, “[a]t the hearing, Acting Administrator Slavitt testified that his agency is working to produce documents pursuant to the March 23 request to the Committee. In fact, when Mr. Slavitt was asked when the Committee can expect those documents, Mr. Slavitt said, ‘I think quite soon.’ When pressed further on the status of the document production, Mr. Slavitt committed to Chairman Murphy that CMS would provide these documents in a timely manner. … Since the hearing, HHS and CMS have only produced one document: a six-page memorandum summarizing a CMS final rule, which contains one short paragraph on the reinsurance program." Members also discussed the payments at a Feb. 24, 2016, hearing, when referencing a memo from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.
This document stonewall is just one of many from the administration regarding the president’s troubled health care law. The committee has also requested documents regarding the Cost-Sharing Reduction Program and the Basic Health Program.
Read the letter online HERE.
