Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R., Mich.) sent a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell on Tuesday, asking whether her agency has the statutory authority for the risk corridor program, which some have called a bailout of the insurance industry.
Sessions and Upton ask Burwell to kindly provide them with HHS's independent legal analysis on the matter, as well as with a list of the funding sources from which it believes it has the authority to cough up the cash on demand. I do so wonder if the White House will bother to get around to it this time, or even pretend to care about providing legal justifications for what basically amounts to them making things up as they go along.