Obama’s $5 Billion Giveaway

[Geee]

National Review:

Instead of giving campaign-style speeches about raising taxes and increasing the debt limit, President Obama should be focusing on cutting needless programs that do nothing more than redistribute the wealth of hard-working Americans.

In less than a year, the Obama administration has given nearly $2 billion to some of the largest corporations and unions in America, as well as to a multitude of states. Section 1102 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — better known as Obamacare — created the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (ERRP), a $5 billion taxpayer-subsidy program for early-retirement medical costs. The program is about to run out of money, which is good news for everyone — except, of course, Congress’s favorite special-interest groups.


According to HHS, Congress designed ERRP to “provide financial assistance for health plan sponsors.” It reimburses these sponsors for a part of the cost of insuring early retirees — those aged 55 to 65 — and their families. The goal of the program is to reduce insurance costs to other participants in the plan by subsidizing early-retiree medical care. In other words, the program shifts the burden of early-retiree medical costs from certain corporate employers to all American taxpayers.
According to a March 31 CCIIO progress report, 1,300 participants have received a total of $1.8 billion through ERRP since the enactment of the program. In the first three and a half months of 2011, ERRP shelled out $1.3 billion on top of the $535 million it spent in the last half of 2010.