NOV. 28, 2015 — ObamaCare’s foray into states’ private insurance markets is a fiasco. That’s evidenced by the collapse of at least 12 of 23 nonprofit health insurance co-ops to date.
The Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans were supposed to provide an option to for-profit insurance coverage. ObamaCare provided support, in loans, that would cover losses for the co-ops in their initial years, writes political analyst Edward Morrissey in The Fiscal Times. The question now is how do the remaining co-ops survive without continuous government subsidies.
“The model was fundamentally unsound from the start,” Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
That’s not surprising, given government’s entry into health insurance markets without previous insurance-claim experience. ObamaCare truly is ObamaScare.
“Mandates to cover pre-existing conditions at market pricing would create a utilization surge that would require broad premium increases to offset. The co-ops couldn’t keep up with that,” writes Mr. Morrissey. How will the feds recover more than $1 billion in loans from the failed co-ops — or where will more than 550,000 co-op clients find new coverage in 2016?
Hint: Hold onto your wallets.
