Congress has both the authority and the obligation to conduct oversight when federally regulated industries profit at the expense of the American people. The evidence now overwhelmingly demonstrates that major health insurers have used the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, not as a vehicle to expand affordable care, but as a mechanism to extract record corporate profits, evade accountability, and shift costs onto patients and taxpayers.
Healthcare CEOs should be compelled to testify because their companies operate almost entirely because of public dollars, public mandates, and public trust—yet they consistently have abused all three.
First, insurers are profiting from taxpayer subsidies while denying care. Obamacare plans are heavily subsidized by federal spending, yet some insurers deny as many as one in three claims. For example, in 2023 the Obamacare marketplace denied 20 percent of claims on average, with many carriers denying up to 35 percent of in-network claims. These are claims from people who followed the rules, paid their premiums, and still had care denied.
Far from covering every American, Obamacare has left more than 28 million uninsured, according to the CDC. CEOs must explain why companies receiving billions in public funds routinely delay, deny, or obstruct medically necessary care while posting record profits.
Second, insurers have exploited regulatory loopholes to inflate their profits. Through vertical integration and internal billing schemes, insurers appear to meet medical spending requirements on paper while routing money to subsidiaries they own, counting internal transactions as so-called patient care. How much taxpayer money in being laundered through corporate balance sheets instead of reaching patients? This accounting shell game undermines the intent of the law and raises serious questions about whether consumers are being defrauded.
Third, executives are enriching themselves while consumers face rising costs. In fact, the top five healthcare CEOs earn $75 million. At the same time, American families’ healthcare premiums have risen to $27,000 since Obamacare became law. Major insurers also engage in large stock buybacks to boost their own share prices. These practices extract tens of billions of dollars that could otherwise go toward lowering premiums or improving benefits for the insured. While healthcare premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses climb for most Americans, insurance executives collect multimillion-dollar compensation packages and authorize massive stock buybacks. Taxpayer-subsidized revenue should not bankroll executive bonuses and Wall Street payouts. Congress must ask why executive pay and shareholder rewards take priority over affordability and patient care in a subsidized market.
Fourth, premiums and out-of-pocket costs keep rising. Obama sold the Affordable Care Act on the promise that you could keep your plan, keep your doctor, lower your premiums, have access to greater choice, get improved access to plans, and those with pre-existing medical conditions would be protected. Yet many discovered after enrollment that doctors and hospitals were unavailable or excluded. Since Obamacare became law, average premiums in my state, Arizona, have gone up dramatically. In fact, from 2013-2017, ACA premiums for Arizonans nearly tripled. CEOs must explain why patients are paying more while they continue to insist Obamacare is working.
Fifth, improper enrollments and fraud have cost taxpayers billions. Federal watchdogs have identified widespread failures to verify eligibility, resulting in improper subsidy payments that flow directly to insurers. Federal investigators revealed last month that the COVID-19 expansion of Obamacare led to an estimated $35 billion in fraudulent enrollments. It is estimated that there are more than 12 million phantom Obamacare enrollees, costing taxpayers billions. Congressional testimony is necessary to determine whether insurers exercised due diligence—or knowingly looked the other way.
Sixth, consolidation has reduced competition and raised prices. Health insurers have raked in $400 billion are operating at a 230 percent profit since Obamacare became law, subsidizing them is nothing more than corporate welfare. Additionally, insurer mergers have concentrated market power, especially in rural and underserved areas. Market concentration increases prices, limits consumer choice and magnifies the policy failures of Obamacare. CEOs must explain how fewer choices and higher premiums serve consumers—or the public interest.
Seventh, Congress cannot legislate responsibly without direct accountability. Democrat lawmakers are blindly insisting that Congress continue to subsidize Obamacare without hearing from the executives who profit most from them. America has a healthcare problem because of the Democrats.
Their solution? More of the same: just extend the Obamacare subsidies to insurance companies and kick the can down the road, again. Congressional hearings are essential to inform reforms, close loopholes, and protect taxpayers.
Finally, public confidence demands transparency. When life-saving care depends on corporate decisions backed by federal dollars, silence from industry leadership is unacceptable. Testimony under oath is the minimum standard of accountability.
Obamacare has become one of the largest taxpayer pipelines in the entire U.S. economy. Taxpayer-funded revenue totaling $9 trillion has flowed to health insurers under Obamacare. Yet instead of delivering affordable, accessible care, the ACA has produced record corporate profit, massive executive compensation, considerable fraud and widespread denial of care.
When insurers deny care, manipulate rules, extract taxpayer subsidies, and reward executives handsomely for it, Congress cannot look away. Healthcare CEOs should not be shielded from scrutiny simply because their industry is powerful. Instead, they should be required to appear before Congress, answer hard questions, and explain—under oath—why an industry built on public support has completely failed the public it is meant to serve.
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