Another insurer, BCBS of North Carolina, files risk-corridor lawsuit
The number of health insurers suing the Obama administration over the Affordable Care Act's hampered risk-corridor program continues to grow.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina filed a lawsuit Thursday, arguing it is owed $129 million in unpaid risk-corridor payments for the 2014 calendar year. The not-for-profit health plan also demanded the federal government pay legal costs and interest, according to a copy of the lawsuit.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina recorded more than $147 million in risk-corridor payments. However, the federal government has only been allowed to pay out 12.6% of insurers' requests. The insurer, which has experienced high medical costs from its ACA exchange population, expects it is owed another $175 million for the 2015 benefits year as well.
The North Carolina Blues' lawsuit comes just one day after Moda Health, an insurer based in Portland, Ore., filed its own risk-corridor lawsuit. Moda sued for $180 million that it says it is owed for 2014 and 2015. Moda has abandoned several exchanges, and Moda's ACA plans have engulfed the insurer in financial turmoil.
Both of those suits follow Highmark's move from last month. Highmark was the first major insurance company to sue the federal government over the risk-corridor program. A co-op in Oregon was the first insurer to pursue litigation over its risk-corridor payments.
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20160602/NEWS/160609973
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Now, this was back in June. Somehow I missed this. This is nothing more than another bail-out. The insurance companies think that their expected profits should be guaranteed.
How funny it was that they were all eager to get in when the minute they had a captive client base through Obama's taxpayer mandate. Not that the gravy is leaking off the train, they're not so damn happy.
Obama, well let's just say he's been 'less than honest' in his dealings with the 99%.
Comments
All the contrivances in the world cant make
our private health insurance system work. It was broken before Obama and its broken now, and there is no way to fix it. Hillary is giving lip service to public option while telling her donors that they have gone far enough on socialism.
Trump would likely throw a grenade and hit the deck.
Stein and Johnson dont have a chance.
Its going to get a lot worse before it collapses and hopefully we can create a semi decent system out of the carnage.
I agree with everything you've said. You've heard old Slick
Willie's latest line of crap, haven't you? I think there's a thread somewhere that talks about it. I'll be right back...
gJohnsit's post
Bill Clinton slams Obamacare
http://caucus99percent.com/content/bill-clinton-slams-obamacare
My Irony-ometer just about blew up.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Bill accidentally gave up the plan
Dismantle the things insurance companies don't like while dangling medicare buy in and single payer, knowing that they wont try hard for them and wont be able to get them through a Republican congress.
Those triangulating Clintons are really getting on my nerves.
1994 redux
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
If the carnage doesn't spread
systemically throughout the economy there might be a chance of pieces. Otherwise, ?
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
See
And you thought Obamacare was a giveaway to the health insurance industry.
/S
I Don't Understand Any of This... But I'm Betting That the
legislated profits did not meet expectations.
Color me shocked.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
This is the essential point, FFSMS.
The insurance companies have profit expectations, their shareholders have dividend and rising shareholder value expectations, and their executives and senior managers have salary/bonus expectations.
ACA assured the insurance companies that these expectations would be fulfilled. Now that they're not, OF COURSE the insurance companies aren't happy. So there are
twoa number of alternatives [not "choices": "choices implies x or y.]Get out of the business
Sue the Government for loss of profits.
The purpose of health "insurance" is to generate profits for shareholders and hefty salaries/bonuses for their execs, NOT to provide health "care" to hoi polloi.
For profit, "insurance"-based health "care" will never work.
It's not only the insurance companies. It's the whole idea of "for profit" health care, including for-profit Hospitals, Ambulances/EMS, Doctors' practices (above and beyond), etc.
My local EMS is part of the community first responder network. I don't pay for a cop to come to my front door if I see a prowler; I don't pay for the fire brigade; why should I pay for EMS if I have a health emergency? Why should I pay exorbitant amounts of money for the doctor to save my life? Isn't that what Society is all about.
I forget: M. Thatcher, There's no such thing as 'Society'. Really? Really???
Taxes, my friends, are what creates a Neighbourhood. A Community. A Village. And a Municipality/Town/City. But "taxes are wasteful, they are theft, I can pay my own way, you should too."
Fine. Pave your own roads, find your own water, generate your own electricity, teach your own kids, and cure your own ailments. Let's all go back to the stone age, when everybody was just sooooo much better off, in all ways, shan't we?
/end rant before I turn red in the face
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.
Like the guy
wearing the teabgger t-shirt(less taxes+less gov't=more freedom) shaking the hand of the firefighters THAT JUST SAVED HIS HOUSE?!?!?
The irony is strong in that one.
Edit: nice rant td.
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march