Republican lawmakers are saying that the Obama administration violated the Affordable Care Act rules by making payments to insurers a higher priority than payments to the U.S. Treasury.
"The administration cannot rewrite its own law to make it more convenient for special interests," said Republican Rep. Tim Murphy, member of the Energy and Commerce Comittee and chairman of Oversight and Investigations, according to
The Hill.
"Hearings like this only serve to hurt Americans and reverse the progress that has been made for the millions who now benefit from the law," said Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the committee.
The act's reinsurance program is designed to protect insurers from high costs of sicker people enrolling in the plan. The plan was organized to collect $10 billion in its first year, while putting another $2 billion in the U.S. Treasury. The program fell short of that amount, so the administration put paying insurers in line first. The U.S. Treasury got no payment in the plan's first year.
Murphy said the payment to the insurers showed "the cozy relationship between insurance companies and this administration."
The administration has the authority to prioritize payments, said Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the reinsurance payments help reduce premiums for customers.
"The administration's efforts are trying to delay the inevitable, the collapse of the Affordable Care Act," Murphy said at the hearing.
Republicans have begun calling programs they oppose "Obamacare for" whichever topic the program covers, such as "Atomic Obamacare" for keeping Iran from making nuclear weapons, reporter Steve Benin said in an
MSNBC editorial.
On the campaign trail, Republicans and Democrats have not focused on the program, according to
The New York Times.
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