Health Republic Insurance of New York, a briefly popular healthcare insurer in the Hudson Valley that failed in 2015, has recovered $222.8 million from the federal government.
Health Republic, a nonprofit corporation, had offered low rates on health insurance plans. By 2015, it had enrolled 215,000 people statewide in individual and small business plans.
It was the most popular Affordable Care Act plan, with 13,330 customers, in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Orange and Dutchess counties, according to a 2015 state Department of Health report.
But it was losing money ”“ $77.5 million in 2014 and about $500 million in 2015.
The state Department of Financial Services directed Health Republic in late 2015 to stop writing new insurance policies and to wind down its business.
The department, with Health Republic”™s consent, took control of the insurer”™s property and assets, then sued the federal government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to recover money the government was supposed to pay Health Republic under the Affordable Care Act.
Health Republic had been eligible for financial incentives that were created to stabilize the health insurance market in the first years of the ACA. But an appropriations law Congress passed in 2015 limited the funding, according to the settlement, and the government withheld payments to Health Republic.
The United States was ordered to pay Health Republic $438.4 million for withheld payments from 2014 and 2015, according to the settlement. That sum was offset by $217.5 million that the insurer owed the federal government for loans and fees, leaving a net judgment of $220.8 million.
“The judgment is a significant victory for the New York policyholders of Health Republic, including many large hospital systems,” Department of Financial Services Superintendent Linda A. Lacewell said in a press release.
Health Republic was 1 of many failed Obamacare startups that the Feds invested millions into. Cant wait for the Supreme Court to throw the entire law, should happen within a month.