House Republicans are demanding to know whether the 11 remaining taxpayer-funded Obamacare plans are going to survive, and if the feds are doing enough to save them.
Leaders of the House Energy & Commerce Committee sent letters to the remaining consumer operated and oriented plans to get more information on their financial viability. The move comes after 12 of the 23 total taxpayer-funded co-ops shut down last year, which cost taxpayers more than $1.2 billion.
The lawmakers chided the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for not doing enough to prop up the co-ops. The agency placed at least eight of the remaining 11 co-ops on additional oversight plans.
“After reviewing these oversight plans, the committee is concerned that CMS has not taken the appropriate steps to ensure that the remaining co-ops will be financially solvent for the remainder of the year,” the letters said.
CMS did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning.
Committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., signed the letters alongside Reps. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., and Joseph Pitts, R-Pa.
The co-ops were created to provide more competition on Obamacare’s exchanges. But more than half of them closed down last year due to the lack of federal funding from a program intended to mitigate insurer losses. Poor pricing of plans was also a factor.
The states that have remaining co-ops are New Jersey, Maryland, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Ohio, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, New Mexico and Oregon.
