CVS Health subsidiary Aetna, Elevance Health and Humana must face a civil lawsuit alleging they paid kickbacks to online brokerages for Medicare Advantage enrollments, a federal court ruled Wednesday.
A whistleblower initiated the case in 2021, which the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts unsealed last year after the Justice Department intervened.
According to the plaintiffs, the three insurers paid hundreds of millions of dollars to eHealth, SelectQuote and GoHealth for steering customers to their Medicare Advantage plans in violation of anti-kickback laws and the False Claims Act of 1863. The plaintiffs also say Aetna and Humana paid brokers to limit sign-ups of enrollees with disabilities, violating federal anti-discrimination laws.
The defendants contend the payments were lawful and deny discriminating against people with disabilities. Aetna, Elevance Health and Humana filed a motion to dismiss the case in August, which the court declined to do on Wednesday.
“Brokers enrolling beneficiaries in defendant insurers’ plans was not simply an incidental or hoped-for result of the marketing payments — it was their explicit and intended purpose,” Chief United States District Judge Denise Casper wrote in her order.
“We are disappointed that the court did not grant our motion to dismiss this case in its entirety. We look forward to vigorously defending ourselves in the legal proceedings,” Humana said in a statement.
Aetna declined to comment. The other companies did not respond to interview requests.