Republicans Decry ‘Unlawful’ $45 Billion Biden Scheme to Expand ObamacareSean Moran 6 Jun 2022
Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and James Comer (R-KY) on Monday decried President Joe Biden’s “unlawful” $45 billion scheme to expand Obamacare.
Jordan, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and Comer, the ranking member of the Oversight and Reform Committee, wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig about the IRS’s proposed rule to “unlawfully expand eligibility for taxpayer-subsidized health insurance under Obamacare.”
The IRS proposed rule follows as roughly 13 million Obamacare recipients will receive a notice of a 53 percent premium price increase as enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, subsidies will soon expire.
Last year, Biden passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, or the Democrats’ coronavirus aid bill. The bill expanded eligibility for the ACA’s subsidized plans beyond the law’s original 400 percent of the poverty line.
Jordan and Comer charged in their letter that the Biden administration wants the IRS to enact the rule for political purposes, as the potential 50 percent price hike will hit millions of Americans right before the pivotal 2022 midterm elections. The conservatives wrote:
The Internal Revenue Service recently issued a proposed rule that, if finalized, would unlawfully expand eligibility for taxpayer-subsidized health insurance under ObamaCare. This proposed rule is inconsistent with both the statutory text and a rule that the IRS finalized nearly a decade ago. Although the IRS acknowledges that its existing rule is the product of ‘considerable deliberation’ and ‘a comprehensive analysis of the issue,’ the agency now seeks to reverse itself. Partisan politics appears to be driving the IRS’s sudden change. Because of Democrats’ previous weaponization of the IRS and the likelihood that this new rule will lead to tens of billions of dollars in new spending, we write to request information about this rulemaking.
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The Biden Administration’s new rule proposes to ‘fix’ this ‘problem’ by changing how the agency determines whether an employee’s dependent is eligible for a premium tax credit. Under the Biden Administration’s revised approach, ‘affordability’ would be based on the premium amount for family coverage instead of the self-only coverage. The IRS’s reversal is unlawful, and it is bad policy. By deploying the IRS for partisan political ends, the Biden Administration is returning to its playbook from the Obama-Biden Administration in weaponizing the IRS to achieve partisan goals.
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