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22 MAINE COMMUNITY HEALTH OPTIONS v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

C 
We  also  find  unpersuasive  the  only  pieces  of  legislative
history  that  the  Federal  Circuit  cited.  According  to  the
Court  of  Appeals,  a  floor  statement  and  an  unpublished 
GAO  letter  provided  “clear  intent”  to  cancel  or  “suspend” 
the Government’s Risk Corridors obligation.  See 892 F. 3d, 
at  1318–1319,  1325–1326.  We  doubt  that  either  source 
could ever evince the kind of clear congressional intent re-
quired to repeal a statutory obligation through an appropri-
ations  rider.  See  United  States  v.  Kwai  Fun  Wong,  575 
U. S. 402, 412 (2015).  But even if they could, they did not 
do so here. 

The floor statement (which Congress adopted as an “ex-
planatory  statement”)  does  not  cross  the  clear-expression 
threshold.  See 160 Cong. Rec. 17805, 18307 (2014); see also
§4,  128  Stat.  2132.  That  statement  interpreted  an  HHS
regulation as saying that “the risk corridor program will be
budget neutral, meaning the federal government will never 
pay out more than it collects.” 160 Cong. Rec., at 18307.10 
But that misunderstands the referenced regulation, which
provided  only  that  HHS  “project[ed]”  that  the  program 
would be budget neutral and that the agency “intend[ed]” 
to treat it that way, while making clear that “it [was] diffi-
cult  to  estimate”  the  “aggregate  risk  corridors  payments
and charges at [the] time.”  79 Fed. Reg. 13829.  HHS’ goals
did not alter its prior interpretation that the Risk Corridors
program  was  “not  statutorily  required  to  be  budget  neu-
tral.”  78 Fed. Reg. 15473.  And neither the floor statement 

—————— 

10 The statement provides in full: 
“In  2014,  HHS  issued  a  regulation  stating  that  the  risk  corridor 
program  will  be  budget  neutral,  meaning  that  the  federal  government 
will never pay out more than it collects from issuers over the three year
period risk corridors are in effect.  The agreement includes new bill lan-
guage to prevent the CMS Program Management appropriation account
from being used to support risk corridors payments.”  160 Cong. Rec., at 
18307.