Health insurers found out Tuesday how much cash they’ll get and how much they’ll have to pay to other insurers as part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services 2014 reinsurance and risk-adjustment payments report,LifeHealthPRO reported.

Iowa insurers receive $54 million in ACA reinsurance payments Here’s an inside look at the federal payments that Iowa insurers are receiving through Obamacare, and how  they’re using them. Read more

The two programs are among three initiatives collectively referred to as the “three R’s” or “lifeboat” programs, which are meant to even the playing field for insurers as the federal marketplace program is rolled out.

The three-year reinsurance program — which runs from 2014 through 2016 — collects an assessment from all insured plan enrollees to pay part of the medical bills for holders of Affordable Care Act-compliant health coverage who had catastrophic medical claims in 2014.

CMS said the reinsurance program received $8.7 billion in contributions and will pay about $7.9 billion to 484 eligible health insurance companies, including seven insurers in Iowa, according to the report. 

The risk-adjustment program, on the other hand, is designed to shift cash from health insurers that had low-risk enrollees in Affordable Care Act-compliant individual and small-group plans in 2014 to health insurers that had high-risk enrollees in ACA-compliant individual and small-group plans that year. High-risk enrollees are generally those members who are sicker and have higher health care claims.

CMS said 758 insurers are participating. Those insurers will transfer about 10 percent of the premiums received in the individual market, 21 percent of the premiums received in the catastrophic market, and 6 percent of the premiums received in the small-group market.

A third element, the risk corridor program, seeks to reduce insurers’ risk by partially offsetting high losses and sharing in large profits. Risk corridors are based on how allowable costs compare with a target amount. Insurers whose ratio of allowable costs relative to the target amount is too high — meaning their premiums did not cover all their claims — will receive partial reimbursement for those losses. Insurers whose ratios are too low will be charged an amount to partially offset their profits. Those figures are expected to be out sometime in August.