Health insurer highmark sues us over obamacare payments

A big player in Obamacare insurance markets is tired of waiting for a big pot of money it says the federal government owes, and now it's taking its case to court. Highmark is suing the

government demanding payment of almost $223 million, the full amount to which the health insurer says it is legally entitled for 2014 under an Obamacare program designed to limit the

business risk of selling plans. Highmark's suit, filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, effectively rejects the government's position, announced last year, that

it would pay Obamacare insurers only 12.6 percent of what they were claiming under the health-care law's "risk-corridor" program. Because of that policy, all eligible

Obamacare insurers are being paid just $362 million out of the $2.87 billion they had claimed for 2014. Highmark itself has gotten about $27 million. The Highmark Building in downtown

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Brent Moore | Flickr CC The suit by Highmark, the insurance unit of Highmark Health, was reported Tuesday night by _The Wall Street Journal_. Obama administration

issues rules for employee-wellness plans The risk-corridor program is one of several Obamacare programs that are designed to cushion financial losses that insurers suffer from plans they

sell on Obamacare marketplaces operated by federal and state governments. Under that program, which ends in 2017, insurers that had financial gains from their Obamacare business would

contribute money to the risk-corridor pool, which would then be tapped to subsidize insurers that had losses. In its suit, Highmark claims federal officials at first said that risk-corridor

payments due to insurers would be made in full, even if there was not enough money collected from profitable insurers, the _Journal_ reported. Obamacare brings record low for US health

uninsured rate But officials later said the risk-corridor program would be budget-neutral, meaning that only money collected from other insurers would be used to make the payments. The

Republican-controlled Congress, which is staunchly opposed to Obamacare, later made that policy law. "All we're asking is for the federal government to do what they promised,"

Highmark Health Chief Executive David Holmberg told the _Journal_. A spokesman for the U.S. Health and Human Services Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from

CNBC. Read the full _Wall Street Journal _story here.