House members want the Obama administration to answer whether states are improperly pocketing money from insurers.
The lawmakers wrote to the administration Wednesday to get information on user fees paid by insurers in exchange for selling plans on the federally run healthcare.gov.
The Republican lawmakers are concerned about four states — Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon — that set up their own Obamacare exchanges but have abandoned them and now rely on healthcare.gov.
Four lawmakers wrote to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees Obamacare, on Wednesday asking how the switch affects the user fees paid by insurers that sell plans on Obamacare exchanges.
Most qualified plans using healthcare.gov pay a 3.5 percent user fee on plans sold on the exchange. That helps offset the administrative costs of the marketplace.
“However, CMS appears to allow the state exchanges using [healthcare.gov] flexibility to set and collect user fees sold in their respective states,” according to the letter from Republican Reps. Kevin Brady of Texas, Peter Roskam of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan and Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania.
Brady is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Upton is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
They noted that Oregon and Nevada could keep 100 percent of the fees collected.
The lawmakers want to know if any of the states with the arrangement can use healthcare.gov for free and pocket user fees “charged to qualified health plans in their state for their own use.”
CMS recently made a proposal for assessing a 3 percent fee on state exchanges that use healthcare.gov, but it wouldn’t go effect until 2017.
The lawmakers want the agency to detail any agreements among the four states concerning user fees and the total amount of fees garnered from 2014 to 2015.
The agency did not immediately return a request for comment.
