Another Obamacare insurer is suing the federal government to get the money it says it is owed.
Molina Healthcare, a major player in Obamacare’s marketplaces, filed a federal lawsuit earlier this week seeking more than $50 million in payments under the law’s risk corridors, a program intended to mitigate losses for insurers in the new marketplaces.
Molina is the third insurer to seek money under the risk corridor program, and eight insurers have filed claims in the Court of Federal Claims for their own money.
The Affordable Care Act program works by insurers with smaller profits getting money from the government, which would use money to pay them from insurers with higher profits.
However, it hasn’t worked out that way.
For the 2014 payments, insurers requested nearly $3 billion. Not enough insurers paid in to the program, so they only got about 12 percent of that (about $362 million).
The payments for the 2015 coverage year were sent to pay down the balance from 2014.
Molina is the latest insurer to bring a lawsuit. It says the federal government admitted that it has to pay the full amount of risk corridor payments for 2014 and 2015 but it has failed to do that.
It is seeking $52 million to cover the payments made for those years.
