The Affordable Healthcare program (Obamacare), to way of making payments for risk patients was put on hold after a judge made a ruling on if the program should pay for itself…..
The judge did NOT ask for the program to be halted, which the Trump admin did….
There has been a quiet push by healthcare insurers,, who by the way are doing fine with the same program they complained about and threatened to drop out of, to get the billions in held money flowing again….
Obamacare isn’t going anywhere folks….
The Trump administration is resuming Obamacare’s risk adjustment program, just weeks after it abruptly froze billions of dollars in insurer payments citing a court ruling invalidating parts of the program.
CMS [ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services], on Tuesday night issued a final rule that it said clarifies the program methodology and addresses issues raised earlier this year by a federal judge, clearing the way for the government to begin making payments again.
“Issuers that had expressed concerns about having to withdraw from markets or becoming insolvent should be assured by our actions today,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said.
The risk adjustment program, created to protect Obamacare insurers that attract sicker and more expensive customers, has been targeted in court by some companies that allege it penalizes smaller startup health plans.
A federal judge in one case partially agreed, ruling in February that HHS erred in requiring that the risk adjustment program be budget neutral.
Still, CMS’ decision earlier this month to halt the program altogether caught the insurance industry by surprise, generating more uncertainty about the Obamacare markets and prompting criticism from Democrats who characterized the move as an attempt to further undercut the law….