Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) called for federal health officials on Tuesday to investigate reports that unwarranted subsidies may have been paid out under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Hatch, Coburn and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) requested in a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and HHS Inspector General (IG) Daniel Levinson that they verify tax credits and cost-sharing assistance were appropriately awarded under ACA.
Sebelius confirmed before Congress in January that systems were in place to ensure subsidy applicants were eligible, and she outlined measures designed to protect taxpayers from fraud. Following recent reports, however, the senators questioned the accuracy of those claims.
The government may be paying inappropriate subsidies to more than one million Americans because ACA software isn’t yet able to verify an applicant’s income, the Washington Post reports.
“These reports call into serious question the veracity of the secretary’s certification that exchanges will accurately verify an applicant’s eligibility for subsidies before they were issued,” the senators said. “It seems highly unlikely that the secretary could accurately certify that systems were in place to verify the accuracy of applicant information, when in fact these systems had not been fully developed, tested and deployed.”
A law passed by Congress requires the inspector general of the HHS to submit a report on the effectiveness of the system to prevent improper subsidy payments by July. The senators said they “strongly encourage” Levinson to consider an evaluation from the inspector general of the Treasury Department on the system’s ability to prevent fraud and recent media reports in compiling the report.
“Whatever one’s opinion of Obamacare, the American public deserves to know that their tax dollars are allocated appropriately and that public officials take their responsibility to accurately and faithfully apply the laws enacted by Congress seriously,” the senators said.