Supreme Court rules insurance companies can collect billions to cover Affordable Care Act losses

The federal government owes health insurance companies $12 billion, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. In an 8-1 decision, the court sided with health insurers claiming an Affordable Care Act provision that encouraged them to offer coverage to previously uninsured Americans had cost them billions of dollars.

The ACA's "risk corridors" program, which ran from 2015 to 2017, had promised health insurers a cushion for any potential losses if they offered coverage in the insurance marketplace the act created. But Congress passed provisions to the Department of Health and Human Services' spending bills each year to block those payments, and both the Obama and Trump administrations argued those provisions meant the federal government didn't have to pay up.

The Supreme Court ruled against the federal government in its opinion authored by liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor. A lower court had sided with the federal government, but health insurers argued that ruling allowed the government to perform an illegal "bait and switch."

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