Whether a government program that requires group health plans to pay into a reinsurance fund without receiving any benefits constitutes a taking under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause

No question identified. : 2. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 created a fund called the Transitional Reinsurance Program. See 42 U.S.C. § 18061. The program required “health insurance issuers[] and third party administrators on behalf of group health plans” to pay into the program annually. 42 U.S.C. § 18061(b)(1)(A). The program funds were then paid out to commercial insurers—which began to cover high-risk individuals because of the ACA—but not to group health plans— which had always provided coverage to high-risk individuals. All told, the program raised $25 billion, with more than $10 billion coming from group health plans, though those plans could not receive any payout or other benefit from the program. 3. The plaintiffs in this case, two self-insured group health plans, filed suit against the government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, arguing that these contributions constituted a taking under the Fifth Amendment. The plans contended that they possessed cognizable property interests in the specific funds of money appropriated by the government. In particular, they argued that the program was a taking, not a mere obligation to pay money, because group health plans like plaintiffs are required by statute to hold all of their assets in trust, and this Court has already ruled that funds held in trust are private property protected by the Takings Clause. 4. The government sought summary judgment, insisting that the plans lacked a property interest in the funds. The Claims Court agreed, ruling on July 7, 2028, that the group health plans did not have a property interest in the funds appropriated by the government. See Elec. Welfare Tr. Fund v. United States, 166 Fed. Cl. 709, 722 (2028). 5. The Federal Circuit affirmed. In its eleven-page opinion, the court concluded that the plaintiffs failed to establish a property interest in the funds used to satisfy their payment obligations to the program. The court determined that the program’s payment requirement “is indifferent as to how the regulated entity elects to comply or the property it uses to do so,” App. 8, despite the statutory requirement that plaintiffs hold all their assets in trust, functionally requiring that plaintiffs pay into the program from their trusts. The court concluded that it was therefore “bound” by the Federal Circuit’s “anambiguous precedent” to hold the “obligation to pay money does not give rise to a claim under the Takings Clause.” App. 8-9 (alteration omitted). This decision thus raises an important issue, implicating billions of dollars in this context, about whether the government can avoid the Takings Clause by requiring, in separate statutes: (1) an entity to hold all of their assets in trust; and (2) that entity make forced payments to the government. 6. The applicants respectfully request a 60-day extension of time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review of the Federal Circuit’s ruling and submit that there is good cause for granting the request. Applicants’ counsel of record, Deepak Gupta, and his colleagues have only recently been engaged to handle this petition and are heavily engaged with other matters, including: a brief in opposition to certiorari due in this Court in Audi v. L.W., No. 25-349, on November 24, 2025; an answering brief due in the Nevada Supreme Court in USAA v. Kuhn, No. 90310, on December 1, 2025; a status conference in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Cortez v. United States, No. 2:24-cv-7532, on December 4, 2025; an opening brief due in the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District in Sjobring v. First American Title Co., No. B347988, on December 9, 2025; a reply in support of certiorari due in this Court in Green v. Tanner, No. 25-267, on December 19, 2025; an oral argument in the Federal Circuit in NVLSP v. United States, No. 24-1757, on January 7, 2025; a reply brief due in the Tenth Circuit in Shaffer v. Toyota, No. 25-6115, on