Senate Republicans seek to recoup ‘wasted’ ObamaCare dollars

Top Republican senators are pressing the Obama administration for details about how it will recover the “hundreds of millions of dollars” spent on failed ObamaCare exchanges.

In a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Tuesday, the senators accuse the federal government of a lack of oversight and a lack of urgency in recovering the funds.

“This equates to hundreds of millions of dollars in government waste, and this issue needs to be addressed swiftly,” Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) wrote.

The federal grants were awarded to states such as Oregon, Nevada, Massachusetts and Maryland, all of which scrapped plans to create their own exchanges after receiving federal grants. More than a year later, the Republican senators said no funds have been recovered.

Oregon, which received more than $200 million in federal dollars, became a sore spot for Democrats nationally. As a result of the broken website, the state of Oregon is in the middle of a months-long legal battle with its contractor, Oracle.

Burwell said during her confirmation hearing in May that she would look to recoup the funds.

But CMS administrator Marilyn Tavenner suggested in September that the federal government didn’t have authority, arguing that the matter “is between the state and the contractor.”