As Administration Continues Obamacare Stonewall, Upton and Brady Issue Additional Subpoenas

Press Release

After requesting information and documents for over a year regarding the administration's unlawful payments to insurance companies, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) today issued subpoenas to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for documents regarding the cost-sharing reduction (CSR) program, part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The committees also each issued subpoenas to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for one document and all drafts that the committees learned about during the course of the investigation. The committees first launched an investigation into this program in February 2015, but the Obama administration has refused to cooperate, repeatedly denying requests for information and documents since that time.

These subpoenas come after repeated and exhaustive requests for HHS to comply. In January 2016, Secretary Burwell agreed during a phone call with Chairman Upton to provide information to the committees on the issue, putting a subpoena on a short-term hold and granting HHS one last chance to provide the requested information and documents. Since that time, HHS has been unwilling to answer the vast majority of the committees' questions about the program, including in interviews, and has again failed to produce the requested documents, making the subpoenas necessary.

The committee leaders have been concerned that the administration is paying subsidies to insurance companies under Section 1402 of the health care law without a legal appropriation from Congress. These expenditures have totaled more than $5 billion to date and are estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to amount to approximately $170 billion over the next 10 years. The committee leaders first requested documents on February 3, 2015. Committee leaders reiterated their request for documents and information in a July 7, 2015, letter only to be rebuffed for a second time. Upton and Brady again pressed the administration for answers in a December 2015 letter to Secretary Burwell and Secretary Lew, which was again ignored. The subpoenas issued today compel HHS to produce the requested documents by May 18. (A complete timeline is below)

"We've gone above and beyond to give the administration every opportunity to comply with our repeated requests for details. Now, 15 months after our first request, we still don't have the most basic information about the $5 billion in unlawful payments to insurance companies," said Upton and Brady. "Enough is enough. Complying with Congress is not optional, and the American public deserves the courtesy and respect of cooperation. Our pursuit of the facts and the truth continues."

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