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A health insurance plan that threatens to further erode Obamacare, one of President Donald Trump’s favorite targets, is awaiting the U.S. government’s sign-off.

It comes from a group of little-known companies with an investor who’s had only one other turn in the spotlight -- as the guy behind a mysterious loan to Trump’s onetime campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

Although these companies aren’t tied to bold-faced names or big insurers, they have well-connected lobbyists and the support of Republican attorneys general of Georgia, Texas, Louisiana and four other states. What they’re proposing is health coverage, with a twist. In exchange for providing insurance, they’d harvest and sell online data, like web surfing activity, from those who buy into the plan.

Several health policy specialists who reviewed the proposal for Bloomberg News said it is notable because the companies could choose whom they admit to the partnership, effectively allowing insurers to cherry-pick policyholders. That would create a model enabling insurers to gut an essential promise of the Affordable Care Act of making health coverage available without discrimination, according to Katie Keith, a health law professor at Georgetown University who examined the paperwork.

“It could affect millions,” Keith said.

Those behind the plan denied it would discriminate. “This plan will help more than 20 million Americans -- primarily middle-class, self-employed people and their families,” said Alexander Renfro, an attorney for two of the companies.

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Bloomberg News pieced together details of the insurance plan -- and the substantial Washington lobbying effort behind it -- through interviews, court filings, documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, lobbying disclosures and other records. Bloomberg first learned of the insurance effort as it looked into who was behind a $1 million loan that was extended to Manafort’s family as his legal woes were deepening.

That lender was identified earlier this year as Arjan “Ari” Zieger, who concealed that loan through layers of companies and went to court to try to keep his name from becoming public. The 56-year-old ran a family plumbing business in suburban Los Angeles that folded about a decade ago, prompting his turn to lending and real estate. His loan to the Manaforts, backed by a condominium in Manhattan, was extended in August 2017.

Around the time of the loan, one of Zieger’s companies was kicking off an insurance effort and, later that year, started lobbying in Washington. That company and another he helps run have since spent almost $400,000 on the influence campaign, and more on legal fees.

The majority went to a firm whose senior adviser is Corey Lewandowski, a Trump ally who like Manafort oversaw the presidential campaign for a time. One of the Zieger companies has been the top client of the Lewandowski firm this year.

Much of the $400,000 spent on lobbying went to Turnberry Solutions Inc., where Corey Lewandowski is a senior adviser. Photographer: John Taggart/Bloomberg

What the companies need to start operating is approval from the Labor Department. Lobbying disclosures and people familiar with the Washington work describe communication and a meeting with top officials at the department, as well as outreach to the office of Vice President Mike Pence. Supporters also pressed the White House chief of staff. The companies are asking a federal judge in Texas who previously ruled against the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, to force the Labor Department’s hand.

Zieger had no tie to Manafort before the loan, he has said, adding that it was a solid business proposition backed by an attractive property. The loan, which came under Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s scrutiny as he seized assets after Manafort’s conviction, hasn’t been repaid. There’s no indication that Zieger sought assistance from Manafort in the insurance venture.

“There is absolutely no connection between the lawful, fully documented loan made to the Manafort family -- before Mr. Manafort was charged with any crimes -- and Mr. Zieger’s many other investments and business activities,” including the insurance effort, Zieger’s lawyer, Keith Berglund, said in a statement for this article.

Zieger declined to comment for this article. A lawyer for Manafort declined to comment.

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The proposal under Labor Department consideration would allow a Georgia company called LP Management Services to create a data-sharing partnership that small firms could join. After agreeing to provide online user data, those in the network could then pay full premiums to buy into LP Management’s health insurance. LP Management would require each user to do at least 500 hours of annual “work” for the partnership, in the form of generating and sharing online activities, according to filings describing the plan.

The scope of the data that LP Management would harvest, and the extent to which it aggregates it before selling it to marketing firms, isn’t clear from the filings.

It may be possible for insurance providers to avoid selling coverage to high-risk groups by simply keeping them out of the business partnership to begin with, said Marc Machiz, who served three stints in the Labor Department between 1978 and 2016.

Ari Zieger’s $1 million loan to Paul Manafort’s family was secured by Manafort’s apartment at 123 Baxter Street in New York. Photographer: Jeenah Moon

Machiz, who supports Obamacare, called the proposal a workaround that is “as bad as anything I’ve seen.” If the idea proliferates, he said, it would allow insurers to “skim risk” and pick and choose whom they insure. He added that the plan’s creators are seeking an approval that would block state regulators from policing the insurance.

Randall Johnson, a lawyer who’s listed as the “authorized person” on LP Management’s Georgia registration, said the proposed health plan complies with federal law.

“Our plans do not discriminate,” Johnson said by email. Citing the Affordable Care Act, he said “no health plan, including ours, may discriminate against anyone. All partnerships managed by LPMS accept anyone who wishes to become a partner, and always will.”

Johnson added that Zieger has “no role” or “financial interest” in LP Management.

However, the lobbying for approval of LP Management’s plan was financed by two companies connected to Zieger, according to disclosure records.

One of them is Suffolk Administrative Services, which Zieger helps run, he testified last year in proceedings stemming from his divorce. Suffolk provides back-office and consulting services.

The other is Providence Insurance Partners, a Nashville-based reinsurance company. Registered in Tennessee in 2014, it requested permission in May 2017 for a U.S. trademark for a plan that would design and manage health coverage for small groups and individuals. Zieger initially co-owned a company that controlled Providence and is now a beneficiary of a trust that co-owns the holding company, according to court records. He’s involved in Providence’s operations, he has testified.

Providence, Suffolk and their affiliates could generate fees from LP Management’s plan because the reinsurance, health-care design, administration and other services they provide match those that LP has said in filings it will need.

Labor Department

Much of the lobbying has focused on the Labor Department, which oversees employer health plans. For LP Management, a so-called opinion letter from the department would reassure potential partners and state regulators of the plan’s legality.

In December 2017, Providence hired a small Washington lobbying firm, CC Law & Policy. Its principal, Christopher Condeluci, advised Republican senators during the drafting of Obamacare. Among other things, he later asked officials including a senior adviser to then-Secretary Alex Acosta for a meeting to discuss the opinion letter, according to records.

CC Law & Policy, which received $10,000 for its work, said in a written statement that Condeluci gave the legal advice that was sought and had no knowledge of Zieger’s loan to Manafort.

The lobbying opened doors at the Labor Department. Early in 2019, Jason Osborne, a co-founder of Turnberry Solutions Inc., where Lewandowski is a senior adviser, met with a senior department official who said he’d bring the request for an opinion letter to Acosta, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Acosta and Osborne declined to comment. Calls to Lewandowski weren’t returned.

Pence’s Office

Another lobbying firm, Taylor English Decisions, focused on Pence and members of Congress on Suffolk’s behalf. Disclosure records don’t say whether lobbyists met with the vice president or his aides. A spokesman for Pence’s office declined to comment, and calls and emails to Taylor English weren’t returned.

Additional support for LP Management’s plan came from the seven Republican attorneys general. In February, they asked the Labor Department to issue a favorable opinion letter. Louisiana’s Jeff Landry pitched the plan in discussions with Acosta and White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Bloomberg Law reported in July.

The Labor Department declined to comment.

Now, the plan’s backers have turned to the courts. In October, an LP Management affiliate sued the Labor Department in Texas, seeking an interpretation of federal labor law as it relates to their proposal, including how to define terms like “employees” and “participants.”

The case is pending before U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, who in an earlier case struck down the Obamacare law as unconstitutional. (That ruling is being appealed.) A favorable ruling from the judge could prod the Labor Department to act and clear away potential objections.

Renfro -- who is a lawyer for both LP Management and Providence, and the administrator of Suffolk -- said by email that the Texas suit was filed because the Labor Department hasn’t ruled on their formal requests.

Renfro and William Bryan, Providence’s chairman in 2017, said by email that Zieger’s loan to Manafort was unrelated to the insurance venture. Renfro said he was unaware of the loan until Bloomberg News’s reporting.

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— With assistance by Andrew Martin, Christian Berthelsen, Gerald Porter Jr., and Jennifer Jacobs