Washington Times (DC) May
17, 2018
House GOP leaders declared victory Wednesday in a
long-running dispute with the executive branch, noting a new settlement
preserves a judge's ruling that President Barack Obama reimbursed insurers
unlawfully under his signature health program.
"In a battle over the separation of powers, the House
has prevailed," Speaker Paul D. Ryan said after the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia Circuit granted a motion to dismiss a long-running
appeal in the case.
U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled in 2016
that Mr. Obama could not make "cost-sharing payments" to insurers who
pick up low-income customers' costs on Obamacare's exchanges, because Congress
never appropriated the money.
House Republicans, who'd specifically zeroed out the money
and then sued Mr. Obama for ignoring their wishes, hailed the ruling as a
victory for the separation of powrs, noting Capitol Hill controls the nation's
purse strings.
Yet Judge Collyer stayed her ruling pending the appeal, so
the money kept flowing but the court battle bled into the Trump era, meaning
opponents of Obamacare were on both sides of the litigation.
The GOP failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care
Act with something better, however, leaving the thorny issue of whether to
continue the payments while the 2010 law remained on the books.
President Trump decided last year he could no longer make
them unlawfully, raising an outcry from Obamacare's defenders until they
realized many subsidized customers were better off without them, since states
designed their premium structures in a way that boosted a separate stream of
subsidy payments.
Efforts to backfill the payments as part of an Obamacare
stabilization bill fell apart this year amid a dispute over pro-life language
and midterm year politics, so insurers and states were left to structure 2019
rates without the reimbursements.
Though Republicans are still grappling with their next
steps on Obamacare, Mr. Ryan hailed the conclusion of the legal saga as an
historic win for his chamber.
"When former Speaker John Boehner initiated this
suit, it was to protect one of the House's most primary authorities: the power
to spend," Mr. Ryan said. "Fighting for a successful conclusion has
been an important priority for my speakership, and the result today preserves
that only Congress, not the executive, can authorize spending. This is a
historic outcome that leaves this institution stronger."
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