Tag: insurance company bailout

Obamacare bailouts prove that the law is flawed and lousy

Guest Post by

And Congress shouldn’t vote to spend billions of dollars keeping health insurers afloat

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
President Obama makes a face when he spoke about receiving injections before the American Nurses Association House of Delegates. But he might be making this face for real if Congress decides not to bail out health insurers losing money by participating in exchanges created through the Affordable Care Act.

This week, as part of the reconciliation bill, Congress may vote on bailing out health-insurance companies losing money from their participation in the Affordable Care Act exchanges. With an $18 trillion national debt, Congress should stand firm and say no to the bailouts.

Sen. Marco Rubio is leading the fight against the bailouts. In a letter to congressional leaders, he wrote: “The reason these health-insurance companies are enduring a financial loss is that ObamaCare is a disastrous law. It broke the promise to lower health-insurance premiums and allow Americans to keep their health care. Now the very architects of this law are attempting to place taxpayers on the hook.”

Last year Rubio limited the bailout of the insurance companies with the ObamaCare Bailout Prevention Act. Some of the provisions were included in last year’s spending bill. The result of the measure was that, in October, the Department of Health and Human Services transferred $362 million to the losing insurance companies, rather than the $2.9 billion that they requested. That’s $2.5 billion more for taxpayers.

Continue reading “Obamacare bailouts prove that the law is flawed and lousy”