Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1023_m64o.pdf
Page Number: 11

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

All  told,  the  Risk  Corridors  program’s  deficit  exceeded

$12 billion. 

D 

The  dispute  here  is  whether  the  Government  must  pay 
the  remaining  deficit.  Petitioners  in  these  consolidated 
cases  are  four  health-insurance  companies  that  partici-
pated  in  the  healthcare  exchanges:  Maine  Community
Health Options, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Caro-
lina, Land of Lincoln Mutual Health Insurance Company,
and Moda Health Plan, Inc.  They assert that their plans
were  unprofitable  during  the  Risk  Corridors  program’s  3-
year term and that, under §1342, the HHS Secretary still 
owes them hundreds of millions of dollars. 

These  insurers  sued  the  Federal  Government  for  dam-
ages in the United States Court of Federal Claims, invoking 
the Tucker Act, 28 U. S. C. §1491.  They alleged that §1342 
of the Affordable Care Act obligated the Government to pay 
the full amount of their losses as calculated by the statutory 
formula and sought a money judgment for the unpaid sums
owed—a claim that, if successful, could be satisfied through 
the Judgment Fund.3  These lawsuits saw mixed results in 
the trial courts.  Petitioner Moda prevailed; the others did 
not.4 

—————— 

3 For a meritorious claim brought within the Tucker Act’s 6-year stat-
ute of limitations, 28 U. S. C. §2501, federal law generally requires that
the  “final  judgment  rendered  by  the  United  States  Court  of  Federal 
Claims against the United States . . . be paid out of any general appro-
priation therefor.”  §2517(a).  The Judgment Fund is a permanent and 
indefinite appropriation for “[n]ecessary amounts . . . to pay final judg-
ments, awards, compromise settlements, and interest and costs specified
in the judgments or otherwise authorized by law when . . . payment is
not otherwise provided for.”  31 U. S. C. §1304(a)(1). 

4 Compare 130 Fed. Cl. 436 (2017) (granting Moda Health Plan partial
summary judgment on its statutory and implied-in-fact-contract claims),
with 129 Fed. Cl. 81 (2016) (dismissing Land of Lincoln’s statutory, con-
tract, and Takings Clause claims), 131 Fed. Cl. 457 (2017) (dismissing
Blue  Cross  Blue  Shield’s  statutory  and  contract  claims),  and  133  Fed.