Overnight Healthcare: GOP confronts health chief on secret ObamaCare plan

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee say the Obama administration has been secretly preparing a fallback strategy if the Supreme Court strikes down a major piece of its healthcare reform law later this year. A message from IBM and Epic: We are trusted market leaders in Health IT. Together, we bring a complete end-to-end Electronic Health Record that will give military families the nation’s top rated patient-centric, open, and interoperable system, today and into the future. onemilitaryhealth.com SPONSOR-GENERATED CONTENT But if that plan exists, the head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says she wants to see it. "If there is this document, and you know it, I would certainly like to know about a document, because I don't have knowledge [of it]," HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said before a House subcommittee panel Thursday. Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, claimed that federal officials are hiding a roughly 100-page document on the looming court case. The case, King v. Burwell, could cut off ObamaCare subsidies in three-quarters of states and potentially collapse the national marketplace. Pitts confronted Burwell about the plan, which he says is being circulated among senior officials, for the first time on Wednesday. He did not present a copy of the plan at the hearing, and the administration maintains that no plan exists. "We are not aware of a document that meets Chairman Pitts' description," an HHS spokesperson said in an email. A White House spokesperson declined to comment, deferring to HHS. If the Obama administration loses its case, roughly 7 million people could immediately lose their healthcare coverage. With such high stakes, Republicans have said the administration is surely preparing some way to avert disaster. Read more here. ELSEWHERE ON THE HILL, HEALTHCARE.GOV CEO TAKES A BEATING: In his first official appearance before Congress, ObamaCare CEO Kevin Counihan was accused of "stonewalling" a GOP subcommittee on enrollment data. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) claimed that Counihan refused to share enrollment data with Congress that he said was already provided to the White House and insurance companies in late December. "Either [your agency] intentionally gave misleading information to insurance companies across the country on Dec. 18 or you lied to me and said that you didn't have it," Meadows asked Counihan during his first testimony before Congress. He said Counihan has declined to share the information even after 23 emails, seven phone calls, two text messages and "countless other indirect contacts." Counihan, who joined the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last fall, said he was "very committed to getting that information" but needed to properly vet the data. The CMS official acknowledged that, in some circumstances, "there may be internal information that's shared," but was not familiar with Meadow's claims. Read more here. GOP SENATOR URGES CONSENSUS ON A PLAN – FAST: Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) is warning that the Republican Party will "lose the whole war" against ObamaCare, unless the GOP quickly coalesces around a plan to replace it. Sasse said too many Republicans remain divided on a replacement strategy with only a few months before a major Supreme Court case that could gut a central piece of the law and suddenly make healthcare unaffordable for more than 7 million people. "Unless those of us who oppose ObamaCare unite behind an approach that offers Americans a better alternative, we could lose the whole war," Sasse wrote in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal late Wednesday. The freshman senator said he will be proposing his own plan that involves a stopgap solution in case of a plaintiff victory in King v. Burwell, which involves ObamaCare subsidies in 37 states. He said Congress should offer "immediate, targeted protection" to those who would lose their subsidies -- an idea that remains controversial to many Republicans, some of whom would rather take no action. Read more here. ...BUT HARD-LINERS IN THE HOUSE SAY NO WAY: Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) told The Hill on Thursday that he would make no compromise to keep the subsidies flowing in case of a plaintiff victory. "There's no reason for us to stretch out the funding," he said. "There's no reason to do that. It just puts more pressure on us to adopt more ObamaCare." And he thinks a "fairly large group" of Republicans agree. Friday's schedule The Federal AIDS Policy Partnership will hold a briefing on domestic HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment at 10 a.m. State by state Judge orders Oracle to keep hosting Oregon's Medicaid system Tennessee bill would help kill Affordable Care Act, should court rule against Obama Late-term abortion bill heads to W.Va. governor's desk What we're reading The return of the death of ObamaCare ObamaCare users turn out to be pretty good shoppers Pending Supreme Court Cases involving the Affordable Care Act Study: Hospitals spend too much to defend Medicare patient care decisions What you might have missed from The Hill Study: ObamaCare premiums could triple if court tosses subsidies Lawmakers one step closer to regulating e-cigs GOP lawmaker finds Dem partner to push long-time mental health plan Industry pans bill targeting safety of detergent pods Please send tips and comments to Sarah Ferris, sferris@thehill.com, and Peter Sullivan, psullivan@thehill.com. 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