On March 17, 2022, in Vista Health Plan, Inc. v. US Department of Health & Hum. Servs., the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) risk-adjustment program.
The ACA prohibits health insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums based on someone’s health status. To disincentivize these prohibited practices, HHS administers the risk-adjustment program by redistributing enrollees’ actuarial risk among health insurers. Plans with healthier enrollees in any given state pay fees into a pool from which funds are distributed to plans insuring sicker individuals in that same state.
Several small health insurers around the country have unsuccessfully argued that risk-adjustment calculation favors larger insurers. In this case, Vista Health Plan, Inc., a small insurer in Texas, was assessed risk-adjustment fees that exceeded its premium revenue, causing it to cease operations in 2019. After Vista sued HHS, this advanced many constitutional, statutory interpretation, and administrative procedure arguments challenging the program.
The Fifth Circuit’s decision to uphold the program serves less as an assessment of HHS’s risk-adjustment calculation but rather more of an analysis of the administrative process the government undertook to implement the program. Although this case is focused on carriers, employers should be aware that the risk-adjustment program will remain a fixture in health insurance markets, having survived yet one more test by judicial review. This is especially important in the small group market, where premiums are community rated and stabilized in part by the risk-adjustment program.
Vista Health Plan, Inc. v. US Department of Health & Human Services »