Cassidy Announces Lance-Cassidy Bill To Restrict Obamacare Insurance Bailout

Press Release

Today, Congressman Bill Cassidy condemned the Obama Administration's bailout of health insurance companies. Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its final regulation that allows insurance companies to potentially receive federal taxpayer funding. The Lance-Cassidy bill, HR 4406, will impose restrictions on Obamacare's risk corridor program and will ensure that it is budget neutral.

Congressman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) released the following statement:

"The Obama Administration is asking American taxpayers to pay for insurance companies' deficits. The same insurance companies that supported Obamacare. This is wrong and I will oppose this bailout."

Congressman Leonard Lance (R-NJ) offered the following statement:

"I applaud Dr. Cassidy's leadership in the fight to stop the Obamacare insurance bailout. No one has worked harder to protect taxpayers and small businesses from this big insurance giveaway than Representative Cassidy."

The Temporary Risk Corridors Program in Obamacare was set up to collect money from insurers and transfer it from companies with healthier, less expensive consumers to those with sicker, more costly consumers. If the program costs more than it brings in, the rule allows the administration to tap funds appropriated for other health programs to supplement payments to insurers.

The Congressional Research Service issued a memo stating that any funding sent to insurance companies through the risk corridor program must be approved by Congress. There are concerns that the Obama Administration does not have the legal authority to make the payments to the insurance industry.

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