Leading Republicans are charging that the Obama administration is illegally funding yet another part of Obamacare, in addition to the part of the healthcare law over which House Republicans are already suing.
Their latest criticism centers on the Affordable Care Act’s basic health program, an optional program for states that started this year, in which low-income residents can get subsidized, state-contracted health plans instead of buying them through the new online marketplaces.
The administration is funding the program illegally by using a pot of IRS money used for tax refunds, says Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., who leads oversight efforts on the House Ways and Means Committee.
The law authorizes that money can be used for the law’s insurance premium subsidies but not for the basic health program, he argues. He says using that funding would require approval from Congress since it is not authorized within the text of the law itself.
House Republicans have already targeted that same pot of money in their Obamacare lawsuit, saying it’s being used illegally to pay for the law’s insurance cost-sharing subsidies. That case is currently being litigated.
Now Roskam and other leading Republicans are trying to attack the administration on the basic health program funding, saying it’s another example of the same tactic.
“It appears the administration is creating a pattern of taking funds from a permanent appropriation for purposes contrary to Congress’ intent,” Roskam wrote Wednesday to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell in a letter provided to the Washington Examiner, also signed by Reps. Kevin Brady, Tim Murphy and Joe Pitts.
Minnesota is the only state that has set up the basic health program, although New York is taking steps in that direction. If states opt in, the federal government would cover 95 percent of the subsidies that enrollees would have otherwise collected in the marketplaces, although it’s not allowed to cover administrative costs.
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.
Federal Judge Rosemary Collyer is deliberating over whether the House GOP case can move forward on the merits. The administration has asked for it to be dismissed, saying the House doesn’t have grounds to sue over how the executive branch is implementing a law Congress passed.
