Oversight, Ways and Means Seek Interviews, Documents on Illegal Obamacare Expansion

WASHINGTON – Despite having no authority to do so under ObamaCare, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a final rule in May 2012 to extend eligibility for health insurance subsidies to people enrolled in exchanges established and run by the federal government.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) today sent a letter to Acting Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin and Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller detailing the Committees’ repeated attempts to obtain redacted documents pertaining to the rule promised during a September Congressional hearing by then-deputy Miller.

This is the fourth letter the Committees have sent requesting the regulatory legal analysis pertaining to the IRS rule, following letters sent August 20, 2012, October 18, 2012 and December 13, 2012. The letter also seeks transcribed interviews with four Treasury staffers.

To date, Treasury has refused to be forthcoming with the Committees. The two Chairman requested Treasury work in a cooperative manner, otherwise they will be forced to consider the use of the compulsory process to secure the previously requested information.

“Our staffs have attempted to work with Treasury in a cooperative manner regarding our request and they have tried repeatedly to accommodate Treasury’s concerns about producing the documents, but Treasury refuses to be forthcoming with the Committees,” the letter states.

A Congressional Research Service analysis concluded that “The plain language of Section 36B [of ObamaCare] suggests that premium tax credits are available only where a taxpayer is enrolled in an ‘Exchange established by the State.’” At the briefing, Treasury officials could not point to a single piece of legislative history that supported their defense of the IRS’s rule.