HHS using bonuses to hide cuts to Medicare Advantage?

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HHS using bonuses to hide cuts to Medicare Advantage?

California Congressman Darrell Issa weighs in

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," October 1, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST OF "YOUR WORLD": Meanwhile, to allegations the government is using bonuses to hide cuts to Medicare Advantage plans in the health care law.

Republican Congressman Darrell Issa threatening to issue subpoenas over this.

The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee joining us right now.

What is actually going on here, Congressman?

REP. DARRELL ISSA, R-CALIF., OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Well, Neil, what is going on is, through a back door, an entitlement, $8.3 billion is going to be spent backfilling moneys that according to ObamaCare when it was passed should not be paid.

And they're doing it under this loophole, this guise that this is sort of experimental. But what they are really doing is trying on the eve of an election not to have seniors realize that the cuts to Medicare Advantage were real.

Now, what is important about this is the money they are taking, they are taking out of nowhere. This is not appropriated money. This is money that bypasses Congress and just allows Secretary Sebelius by calling this what she is calling it to spend $8.3 billion to basically buy an election.

And this is what happens when the heavy hand of government has the ability on one hand, like your last interview, to dictate new fines, and on the other hand to take money out of the pockets of taxpayers without even Congress' permission.

CAVUTO: But, if you're right, this means that the price tag for the health care law, as it rolls out, is getting pricier as the day goes by?

ISSA: Absolutely. Exactly.

If they do not have the fines, then they don't score on one side. If they don't -- if they count this $8.3 billion, then ObamaCare is $8.3 billion more negative during the first 10 years. And, by the way, that is on top of all the new scoring that came out of CBO.

Congressional Budget Office missed it. I don't know why. But ultimately every time they rescore it, ObamaCare becomes a bigger and bigger drain. It turns out you cannot insure 32 million more people for free. You just can't do it. And the seniors are beginning to find out right now.

CAVUTO: Obviously, I know you want to see Mitt Romney elected president, but to undo this thing, you really need a Republican Senate, right?

And without that, is it safe to say the health care law will stand and will grow?

ISSA: Neil, without a House, a Senate, and a president that want to actually drive down the things that cause health care to cost too much in this country, we are not going to get to affordable health care.

We call it ObamaCare. Even the Democrats do now, but the fact is it was called the Affordable Health Care Act, and it did nothing to make health care affordable. It did do a lot of spending of other people's money on health care. But that doesn't actually drive down the cost.

To drive down the cost of health care, we have to deliver it intelligently and we have to do some things that were in ObamaCare. But quite frankly, we have got to deal with the things that drive up the cost.

Your last caller dealt with it. Trying to fine people if they have to come back to a hospital will -- incentivizing the hospitals to send them out too soon. Both of those send the wrong message. It is not the doctors and health care professionals making fair evaluations. It's government's heavy hand.

CAVUTO: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Good seeing you again, Darrell Issa in Washington.

ISSA: Thank you, Neil.

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