The leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittees recently sent letters to 17 health exchanges nationwide concerning the committee’s probe into the federal government’s oversight of state health exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act.
For the past several years, the Energy and Commerce Committee has conducted a thorough investigation of the Obama administration in terms of how it has implemented elements of the health care law. To that end, a recent hearing hosted by the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee reviewed how the federal government expended over $5 billion in taxpayer dollars on failing or failed exchanges.
“The committee’s hearing shed some light on how states have used federal grant dollars to establish their state exchanges and how CMS has approved and overseen the use of these funds,” full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (R-PA) and Health Subcommittee Chairman Joe Pitts (R-PA) wrote in the letter sent to the exchanges. “The hearing, however, did not answer all the committee’s questions, nor fully assuaged its concerns that tax dollars have been, and are being, spent inappropriately. Therefore, the committee is writing to seek additional information concerning the use of federal funds in the establishment and maintenance of the health exchange in your state.”
Essentially, the chairmen are looking for specific answers as to how the states do business with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and a more detailed accounting of how taxpayer dollars are used. The letters went to exchanges in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington and Washington, D.C.