Posted on 02/21/2012 5:11:01 PM PST by mrsmith
Seven organizations will receive a total of $639 million in federal low-interest loans to launch new, consumer-governed health insurance plans in eight states, the federal government announced Tuesday.
The new plans, authorized by the 2010 health law, are scheduled to open for business in 2014... The seven loan recipients are Freelancers CO-OP of New Jersey, New Mexico Health Connections, Midwest Members Health in Iowa and Nebraska, Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative in Wisconsin, Freelancers CO-OP of Oregon, Montana Health Cooperative, and Freelancers Health Service Corporation in New York.
Interest rates will vary between 0 percent and 1 percent... The new plans are being formed by public health activists, medical associations, business groups, hospital executives, labor unions and others.... The health reform law originally allocated $6 billion to provide loans to help co-op plans start up and meet state insurance solvency requirements. But Congress last year slashed that funding to $3.4 billion as part of broader budget cuts, raising concerns about how many co-op plans can be funded. Co-op supporters are hoping CMS will commit all the remaining loan money before Congress makes further cuts. Some experts are skeptical that these fledgling health plans can compete effectively against large, established insurers. They warn of the difficulties of recruiting experienced insurance executives and of quickly signing up a large enough and healthy enough membership to make the plans financially viable. Many nonprofit insurance plans launched under federal initiatives in the past 40 years went bust or were sold or converted to for-profit status.
“It’s comforting to say that existing plans are wasteful and are driving costs up for selfish reasons,” said Peter Kongstvedt, a Virginia-based health care consultant. “The truth is it’s not easy to get costs down. It’s hard for me to believe [co-op plans] can be more efficient and effective.”...
Richard Popper, the CMS official heading the co-op program, would not disclose how many organizations have applied for loans. The average loan is projected by the government to total $15 million for start-up costs and $100 million for state insurance reserve requirements, with repayment required within five years for the start-up loans and 15 years for the reserve loans. Some of the start-up plans are expected to fail, and the government last year predicted a nearly 40 percent default rate for the loans...
That would be about $1.5 billion in the Dems' cronies pockets- for FAILING to provide health insurance plans. Yes, this part of Obamacare pays out $3.4 billion in government guarantees, expecting almost $1.5 billion of that to go into the pockets of their cronies who don't (but gosh they tried! And their intentions were so good you know!) form health insurance plans.
Gee, let's all be "hoping CMS will commit all the remaining loan money before Congress makes further cuts" so the Dems' fat cat buddies can skim off (or "Solyndra" -to coin a phrase) all of the "predicted" $1.5 biilion...
And this quote in the article- '“If you don’t have private shareholders or investors, you have the economic infrastructure to break even and be sustainable,” she said.] Yeah, there's a name for an economic system like that...
I would like to know where this money comes from. How can our president just wave his magic wand and direct this money. Doesn’t Congress have the purse strings and have some checks and balances on this ? Our system is crooked, just damn broke and beyond repair.
It's created, just like the money to pay for all the 99ers, food stamps, housing, student loans, free cell phones, medicaid, etc.
It’s in the Obamacare law Harry and Nancy pushed through congress and Obama signed back in 2010. It’s passage (though not some of it’s content) followed the constitution’s strictures.
The money to pay for this was borrowed on the good credit of the federal government.
Where the money to pay those loans will come from is difficult to see. But that’s no concern yo the recipients, our children and grandchildren will just have to find a way or suffer the consequences- at least they’ll have government death panels to provide relief... One way or another.
This government healthcare scheme will be the death of the Republic.
——This is damned unConstitutional. There is no money to loan; it is being borrowed at increasing interest rates from countries and organizations that are not friendly to us.-——
Default is the only way out.
But the Socialists will fight it tooth and nail, because it will ruin our credit, thereby preventing deficit spending for a generation.
In this part of Obamacare that just started the article states that it’s expected that almost one dollar will be looted for every dollar that goes towards the law’s goal.
Even the most liberal constitution-ignoring citizens of this country should be appalled at such waste- except the Dem cronies who will put it in their own pockets.
We speak so much here of the unconstitutionality and foolishness of Obamacare we don’t do justice to the corruption aspect of it.
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