HHS: Bailing out Obamacare insurers an 'obligation' of the federal government

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Washington Examiner:

The Department of Health and Human Services attempted to reassure private insurers on Thursday that they'll be able to recover losses from participating in Obamacare by claiming it was an "obligation" of the U.S. government to bail them out.

 

At issue is a provision within the law known as the risk corridors program. Under the program, which runs from 2014 through 2016, the federal government is to collect money from health insurers doing better than expected and use those funds to provide a federal backstop to other insurers who incur larger than expected losses from rising medical claims. The idea was to provide training wheels to insurers in the first years of Obamacare's implementation, and to take away any incentive for insurers to cherry pick only the healthiest customers.

 

Republicans, fearing that this could turn into an open-ended government bailout in the event of industry-wide losses, included a provision in last year's spending bill that limited the program, requiring HHS to pay out only from the pool of money collected, rather than supplementing it with other sources of government funding. President Obama signed that bill.

 

Now that insurers have been able to look at medical claims, what they've found is that enrollees in Obamacare are disproportionately sicker, and losses are piling up. For the 2014 benefit year, insurers losing more than expected asked for $2.87 billion in government payments through the risk corridors program, but HHS only collected $362 million from insurers performing better than expected. Thus, the funds available to the federal government only amounts to 12.6 percent of what insurers argue that they're owed.

 

So insurers are not happy. And now the industry lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans — which happens to be helmed by Marilyn Tavenner, who previously oversaw the implementation of Obamacare as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — is aggressively fighting for more money.

________

 

It's their duty, or something...

[Geee]

[Geee]

As exchanges falter, team Obamacare fights for an insurer bailout

Until recently, the insurance giants saw Obamacare as a cash cow. They are now finding the law's insurance marketplaces to be sickly quagmires causing billions in losses.

In response, the Obamacare insiders — the wealthy and powerful operatives who alternate between top government jobs and top industry jobs — are hustling to find more bailout money for insurers. Republicans, if they are able to hold their ground in the face of lobbyist pressure, can block the bailout of Obamacare and its corporate clientele.

 

United Healthcare, the nation's largest insurer, last week announced it was suffering huge losses in the exchanges. "We cannot sustain these losses" UHC's CEO said in a conference call, saying conditions for the insurer were "worsening." The company forecast $700 million in losses on the exchanges. Fellow insurance giant Aetna also said it expected to lose money on the exchanges, and other insurers said enrollment was lower than they expected.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obamacare-fights-for-insurer-bailout/article/2577088

[Geee]

Obamacare’s co-ops were regulated to death before they were even born

 

It’s been a no good, very bad month for the Affordable Care Act.

 

One of the nation’s top insurance companies has threatened to pull out of the government-run health insurance exchanges, while others are raising rates by double-digits after realizing that people signing up for insurance tend to be older and sicker than originally hoped.

 

On top of that, enrollment projections are way off.

 

But perhaps the biggest immediate crisis facing the Obama administration’s signature health reform measure is the utter collapse of many of the so-called “cooperatives” that were set up by states as part of the 2010 law.

 

http://watchdog.org/248687/obamacare-co-ops-regulated-to-death/