Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Stakes Are High For Insurers As Health Law Once Again In Front Of Supreme Court With 'Risk Corridor' Case
The Hill: Justices To Hear ObamaCare Case With Billions At Stake
The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear oral arguments in the latest ObamaCare case to reach the justices, this time in a $12 billion dispute over payments insurers say they are owed by the federal government. At issue is a financial carrot that Congress dangled before insurers to encourage their participation in the early years of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) health care marketplaces. The funding program in question, known as risk corridors, sought to mitigate risk by protecting insurers against unforeseeable losses in the new markets. (Kruzel, 12/9)
Bloomberg Law: Insurers Take $12 Billion Obamacare Case To Supreme Court
The HHS oversaw a “risk corridor” program from 2014 to 2016 through which it took payments from profitable insurers and redistributed them to companies that assumed greater risk by selling plans to sicker, previously uninsured people. The HHS stopped making the payments when Republicans in Congress declined to fund the program. (Dube, 12/9)
Kaiser Health News: Obamacare Back At The High Court — With Billions For Insurers On The Line
Health insurers say the government’s decision on the risk-corridor program amounts to a bait-and-switch. The health plans took a chance with the new marketplaces, where they had little knowledge of how sick or expensive new enrollees would be. They said they expected the risk-corridor funding would back them up. The latest data shows the government owes insurers more than $12 billion in payments to cover losses on the insurance exchanges between 2014 and 2016. (Galewitz, 12/9)
Modern Healthcare: Plan Members Unlikely To Benefit From Supreme Court Risk Corridor Battle
A handful of health insurers is slated to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday that the federal government owes the insurance industry more than $12.3 billion in outstanding Obamacare program funds. While legal experts say the law is on the insurers' side, there's a chance insurers will come up empty handed even if the high court rules that they are owed the "risk corridor" payments. Should insurers receive any award, the individuals enrolled in their health plans are unlikely to benefit much through either lower premiums or rebates under the Affordable Care Act's medical loss ratio rules, experts said. (Livingston, 12/9)
In other Supreme Court news —
Reuters: U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Inmate's Bid For Sex Reassignment Surgery
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal by a convicted murderer who filed a civil rights lawsuit because Texas prison officials denied her request to be considered for gender reassignment surgery. The justices let stand a lower court's decision to reject the claim by inmate Vanessa Lynn Gibson that denying the surgery request violated the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. (12/9)
