The coming Obamacare Bailouts

Obamacare continues to build into a substantial campaign issue.
Of the health insurers of the first 14 states to announces 2017 Obamacare insurance rates, 13 wanted at least 12% increases. Most wanted over 20% hikes.
Then Texas announced.

In Texas, Blue Cross and Blue Shield is seeking increases averaging 53.7 percent across its Affordable Care Act plans, according to documents posted online by the federal government. In Oklahoma, Blue Cross and Blue Shield is seeking rate increases that average 49.2 percent.

That number may not reflect the amount consumers actually pay because many people with Obamacare are getting tax credits to pay for their private health insurance.

Like Hillary Clinton, Obamacare is extremely popular among Democrats, but extremely unpopular among everyone else.

While 78% of Democrats approve of ObamaCare, according to an April survey from the Pew Research Center, 58% of independents and 89% of Republicans disapprove of it.

Obamacare has done little to moderate health insurance costs, while high deductibles are making Obamacare useless to the working poor.
Despite the high insurance costs, health insurance companies are losing money.

Three of the country’s other largest insurers — Aetna, Humana and Blue Cross Blue Shield — have voiced similar concerns over the viability of selling plans on the exchanges beyond this year. And just last month, UnitedHealthcare announced that it would in fact leave the exchanges in all but a “handful” of states next year, jeopardizing hundreds of thousands of health plans....
To stem a further exodus — and responding to insurance industry demands — in November the Obama administration promised to “explore other sources of funding” for payments to insurers. Yet rather than work with Congress, the administration flouted the law entirely — and in this case, that means using tax dollars to bail out insurers left on the exchanges.
CMS simply decided to ignore the law’s requirement to pay the Treasury $5 billion over 2014, 2015 and 2016. In fact, according to a February report from CMS, the agency has flat out refused to make any payments for 2014, and has yet to pay the Treasury a dime for 2015. Officials are instead hoarding those dollars in case larger subsidy payments are necessary to keep more insurers on the exchanges.
In other words, the Obama administration is prioritizing private health insurance companies over taxpayers. Such lawlessness is exactly why people are so fed up with Washington today — special interests get ahead, while American families get the bill.

This is budget trickery, at taxpayer expense, to keep Obamacare afloat until after the November election.
However, a more direct taxpayer bailout is already in the courts.
13 out of the 23 federally subsidized Obamacare Co-ops have since failed. Some of these co-ops are suing the federal government for billions of dollars.

ObamaCare is also bringing out corporate America’s worst crony-capitalist impulses. The health-insurance lobby has teamed up with trial lawyers to sue the federal government—through individual lawsuits and a $5 billion class action—for not following through on a sweetheart bailout deal buried in the law. This provision of ObamaCare would have required taxpayers to bail out insurers for losing money on the health-care exchanges.

To make matters worse, IRS's Chief Risk Officer David Fisher testified under oath that these subsidies to insurance companies wasn't exactly legal.

He testified to telling administration officials that "there was no clear reference in the section regarding the cost-sharing reduction payments to the Internal Revenue Code in the Affordable Care Act" and the "cost-sharing reduction payments are not linked to the Internal Revenue Code, as far as I could tell, directly anywhere."

So to sum this up, Obamacare is very unpopular, is about to get much more unpopular because it's costs are about to jump, it has failed to accomplish most of what was promised, it's on an unsustainable course, and Hillary and other Democrats are going to be forced to justify massive taxpayer bailouts of insurance companies during an election year just to kick the can down the road for a year.

But DKos still thinks this issue is a winner in November.

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dance you monster's picture

A pretty popular one, if I recall correctly. Surely, someone must have mentioned it.

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that fart rainbows.

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and caboodle then expecting it to be affordable was the unicorn pitch

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Lily O Lady's picture

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

thanatokephaloides's picture

..... single public payer, no opt-out?

Diablo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

darkmatter's picture

or inglesay ayerpay.

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and anyone that says otherwise is an unamerican socialist.

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who said "pass it and fix it."

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I wonder what will cost more in the end.

The US, the only industrialized nation to have sold out health care to the private sector, the richest nation on earth cannot afford to provide health care to its citizens. The prices of prescription drugs in the US are just plain crazy, mind-boggling so and yet every other system [take your pick of the best] cant be afforded. I believe 30million still have no insurance at all, sick.

It's beyond stupid, it is criminal

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tapu dali's picture

bailing out private insurance companies, their CEOs. and major investors with taxpayer moneys was a feature, not a bug.

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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.

in monetary and % of GDP terms and by no stretch of the imagination anywhere near the best

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tapu dali's picture

so here come the taxpayer-driven bailouts.

Many knew that the so-called "Affordable" act would turn out rather badly.

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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.

So I've been told.

Pretty much a condemnation of the rest

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Amanda Matthews's picture

totally fell apart. But seriously folks, when he dumped the employer mandate but kept the mandate to purchase for the plebs, there was no way not to know how this was going to end up.

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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

he did on everyone in 2008. If Hillary had had "her turn" in 2008, maybe we would have all been better off to get her over and done with.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

darkmatter's picture

will be to sell Hillary to the nation.

It will be marketing's Ultimate Challenge. The Everest of the hard sell.

(Unless Hillary doesn't get the nomination.)

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thanatokephaloides's picture

grrrrrrrr......

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Pariah Dog's picture

I commented quite often over at the GOS that this mandatory crap was bullshit. I had no income at all at the time and was rapidly exhausting a savings account (a small savings account) while waiting for age 62 and SS.

What, I wondered, couldn't these assholes understand about the words Can't Afford It?

Even after SS kicked in I knew I'd only be getting around $500 a month. And these dipsticks wanted me to buy something I didn't want out of that?

Went over like a lead balloon of course. I needed to get behind the plan because the rainbow farting unicorns would be along aaaaany day now and everything was gonna be swell.

Instead I was auto-enrolled in Medicaid and now my free and clear property will likely have a lien filed on it after I die.

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Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons - For thou art crunchy and good with ketchup

thanatokephaloides's picture

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

TheLeftistheCenter's picture

it would be, but oh how I remember the 'just go along with it, they will improve it" choir on Blue State.

Its only redeeming aspects are the end of pre-existings and lifetime caps, but the long term cost wont be worth it.

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Zinman's picture

With new ammunition provided by a swift kick to the teeth of the American public, maybe people will consider the formerly unthinkable option of socialized health care. I hope so.

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Be a Friend of the Earth, cherish it and protect it.

Bernie's push for community clinics should have been the spearhead for replacing the entire medical industry gang with public medicine.

I'm fortunate enough to have funds to pay most medical bills; I'd be OK with an unsurance policy with a $200,000 deductible. What I'm not OK with is the highway robbery from medical corporations wherein the uninsured are charged 10 times what Medicare pays. Supposedly that was addressed in the ACA, but I was hit with just such charges after the ACA passed. Must be one of those items for which enforcement was delayed.

It ain't just the insurance companies for whom money is "Job 1".

P.S. I also was hit with the strangler fig network problem after I got an ACA plan. A big medical center refused to even look at me. I was willing to pay, but the person at the front desk told me that corporate said no.

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Older and Wiser Now's picture

This is such a huge and important issue. You keep delivering such awesome diaries ... you are a treasure.

This sentence is dead on:

Obamacare has done little to moderate health insurance costs, while high deductibles are making Obamacare useless to the working poor.

What we got was another Medicare Part D ... more corporate welfare. Meanwhile sick people cannot afford to go to the doctor. It both terrifies and disgusts me.

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~OaWN

who are bashing the ACA covered under it? I am. My best friend is. For both of us it's less than perfect and better than where we were before.

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After all, there is a heavy taxpayer subsidy.

But is it a good use of those billions? Or are private investors skimming off the cream?

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Older and Wiser Now's picture

It's not sustainable. Without a Public Option, we are still at the mercy of the insurance companies - and it's in their best financial interest for the cost of healthcare to go up.

I am glad that you are better off now, but the insurance companies are overcharging. You don't feel it, because the tab is being picked up by Uncle Sam. Large debt causes huge problems for the next generations, and also pressure from Republicans to cut programs like SS and Medicare.

Because it's not sustainable, it will not last. So you might actually be better off joining the ranks of those who want the ACA to be reformed into something that is sustainable.

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~OaWN

NinoTheMindBender's picture

Yeah, I'm covered under ACA. First couple of years I was paying about $25 a month. Switched plans because BCBS jacked up their prices so much already. Then this year, for some reason, I stopped receiving the tax credit. The rates jumped to over $400 per month. Part of this is because I'm in Texas where the genius governor won't expand Medicare because the president is a black democrat. This means people end up having to go to emergency rooms that have to take them, and if they can't pay the state picks up the bill. So being a jackass means the state loses money. Another reason for not getting the tax credit: I don't make enough money. Got that? If you don't make enough money, no tax credit. The poorest people don't get a tax credit. Like to explain the logic of that to me?

What honked me off at first was Obama starting negotiations from what should have been the compromise position. He should have asked for single payer. And then this whole "we'll insure everyone by forcing everyone to buy insurance" insanity. I see how this is a give away to the insurance companies, but does diddly for most people. Hey, here's an idea! Let's combat global warming by reducing auto emissions. How to do that? We'll make it the law for everyone to get to where they are going by flapping their arms and flying. Problem solved. Yeah, it's not quite that ridiculous but it's along the same line. You have to buy insurance. What if I can't afford it? Then we'll fine you (and yes I know that under a certain amount you can not be fined, but isn't the whole point to get everyone insured?) So you end up getting fined for being poor, basically. Great system ya got there.

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My son SHOULD be carrying around an Epipen for allergic reactions, but the coverage he qualified for under Covered California won't pay the $1000 x 4 per year for him to do so. Obama's "booming" economy has left him behind and he can't pay for them himself. He's a bee sting away from economic death.

Heck of a job, Barry!

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

and his sell out. Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone was the first article I read detailing out just what it really is - a profit boondoggle for insurance companies at taxpayer expense. God I was pissed when I read that, and had tried using this argument about betrayal over and over again on that other place, to no avail, naturally. I cringe now at my own defense of the thing before reading Taibbi.

And then of course Mr Obama went balls to the wall with the TPP, and then the Democratic party was dead to me.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur