Senior House Republicans are demanding that the Obama administration reveal its contingency plans in the event that the Supreme Court scraps Obamacare subsidies in three dozen states.
Five Republicans on the powerful Energy & Commerce Committee made their request in a letter Wednesday to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.
“Specifically, we are examining the extent to which the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and other relevant agencies of the federal government, are preparing for the possible consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of King v. Burwell,” wrote the lawmakers.
The lawmakers are Energy & Commerce Chair Fred Upton (R-MI), Health Subcommittee Chair Joseph Pitts (R-PA), Oversight Subcommittee Chair Tim Murphy (R-PA), Chair Emeritus Joe Barton (R-TX) and Vice Chair Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).
Here are the questions they sought answers to:
Asked by TPM, HHS and the White House declined to say if they were making preparations for an adverse court ruling. A decision is expected by the end of June.
“We believe we are in a place where our argument and our position will prevail,” Burwell said at a news conference last month, as quoted by CNBC.
The Republicans lawmakers appeared to side with the view that the Supreme Court should ax the federal exchange subsidies, which would spark the crisis they expressed concern about in the letter. They wrote: “The plain text of the PPACA expressly limits such eligibility to those individuals who purchase insurance through a state exchange…”