Like a teenage girl who just got her first credit card, Obama believes any problem he encounters can be solved by having the American people pay for it. Representative Mike Coffman has introduced legislation to stop it.
PeakNation™ we don’t know what is more terrifying, how horrifically bad Obamacare is turning out to be or that the Democrats knew it’d be this bad so they built in a failsafe to get the insurance companies on board. What is this failsafe you ask? Why nothing more than a bailout for the insurance industry when Obamacare causes them to go bankrupt.
So now, not only do we get to pay more for insurance, but we also get to pay for the bailouts when those happen. Wait, Whhhaaat?!?! We pay more and they still go out of business?! Democrats sure have a funny way of running almost 1/5 of our economy.
As Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post reports:
“On Dec. 18, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers was asked what was the administration’s Plan B if, because of adverse selection (enrolling too few young and healthies), the insurance companies face financial difficulty.
…Plan B. It’s a government bailout.
…First, Section 1341, the “reinsurance” fund collected from insurers and self-insuring employers at a nifty $63 a head. (Who do you think the cost is passed on to?) This yields about $20 billion over three years to cover losses.
Then there is Section 1342, the “risk corridor” provision that mandates a major taxpayer payout covering up to 80 percent of insurance-company losses.”
Fortunately, there is a solution. Congressman Coffman has put forth legislation that would amend Obamacare to eliminate the insurance companies’ bailouts. Coffman says in his press release on the legislation:
“The taxpayers should not be on the hook for the failures of Obamacare. Any reasonable person can see that this scheme isn’t going to work and Americans should not be forced to bail it out once it fails.”
The legislation, appropriately titled the No Bailouts for Insurance Industry Act of 2014, would amend the Affordable Care Act to repeal Section 1341, the “reinsurance” fund, and Section 1342, the “risk corridor” provision. These two provisions could provide for a(nother) massive taxpayer bailout to cover the huge losses of insurance companies once the lack of young people subsidization is a big fat flop. At least someone is being realistic about the chances that young, healthy people will sign up for Obamacare. Sheesh.
And weren't big unions just exempted from having to pay this additional "reinsurance" tax? What a bunch of c.r.a.p! As a self-insured SBO, the ACA is going to put many of us out of business! This feels like a nightmare that keeps getting worse and I can't wake up from!