The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that it would suspend $10.4 billion in risk adjustment payments, which are designed to compensate insurers that enroll sick, expensive patients. Unlike with other ObamaCare subsidy programs, risk adjustment payments shuffle money from insurers with relatively healthy populations to others. Some co-ops have sued on grounds that the funding formula is unfair to small insurers. In January a federal court in Massachusetts ruled the formula wasn’t arbitrary and capricious. But a month later a federal judge in New Mexico said it was. The left is complaining that HHS halted the payments too casually, but on all the evidence the Trump Administration is trying to abide by the ruling while the courts resolve the dispute. This is called following the law.
. . .
Over the weekend, former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) acting administrator and Obamacare defender Andy Slavitt took to Twitter to denounce what he viewed as the Trump administration’s “aggressive and needless sabotage” of the health care law:
Unfortunately for Slavitt, the facts suggest otherwise. The Trump administration took actions to comply with a federal court order that vacated rules promulgated by the Obama administration—including rules CMS issued when Slavitt ran the agency. If Slavitt wants to denounce the supposed “sabotage” of Obamacare, he need look no further than the nearest mirror.
. . .