A program built into the Affordable Care Act experienced a budget shortfall in 2014 and will likely require a bailout from the Obama administration to pay insurance companies doing business on the exchange.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, the risk corridor program was designed to help reimburse providers. But that program was in the hole by $2.5 billion in 2014, which led to using money from the following year to pay it off.
That left a sizable hole in the budget, and now the administration could step in and come to the rescue.
A Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services memo dated last week said officials are looking at several options for making the risk corridor payments.
"As we have said previously, in the event of a shortfall for the 2016 benefit year, HHS will explore other sources of funding for risk corridors payments, subject to the availability of appropriations," the memo reads.
"This includes working with Congress on the necessary funding for outstanding risk corridors payments. HHS recognizes that the Affordable Care Act requires the Secretary to make full payments to issuers. HHS will record risk corridors payments due as an obligation of the United States Government for which full payment is required."
Brian Blasé of the nonprofit think tank Mercatus Center told the Free Beacon the money will probably come from taxpayers.
"If receipts are way short and the payments must be made, as HHS indicated in the memo then a taxpayer bailout seems inevitable," Blasé said.
A recent Gallup poll found that 51 percent of Americans do not approve of Obamacare.
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