The Obama administration is funding a provision of the Affordable Care Act unconstitutionally and against the decision of Congress, a Republican House member says. Peter Roskam of Illinois joined Fox News’s Greta van Susteren Thursday to talk about the details of his findings in an oversight investigation by the House Ways and Means committee.
“We’ve just learned that the administration is paying out of a tax refund account, not appropriated money, into something called the Basic Health Program, which was authorized by Obamacare to subsidize various health insurance programs, but Congress never authorized any money for it,” Roskam said. “And we’ve just learned over the last couple of weeks that the administration has paid out $60 million to the state of Minnesota, and that’s just for one month.”
Watch Roskam’s appearance below:
The Washington Examiner has more:
Aides said they only recently discovered how the administration was funding Minnesota’s program, through looking at the state’s first-quarter payment this year.
Prodded by Roskam at a hearing Wednesday, Burwell acknowledged the basic health program payments are coming out of the IRS fund but said “tax credits for programs” aren’t part of the discretionary funding that must be approved by Congress.
“What extra-constitutional authority are you invoking that allows you to spend money that has not been appropriated?” Roskam asked her.
