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States are nailing down dates to release 2015 premium costs under ObamaCare, and their decisions will guarantee a drumbeat of news about rate hikes all the way to the November midterm elections. Democrats are bracing for grim headlines that could put the unpopular law back at the forefront of voters’ minds. Premiums are expected to go up in a majority of states, as they do every year, but the size of the increases could go a long way toward determining how much political damage Obama-Care inflicts on vulnerable Democratic lawmakers. A survey by The Hill of state insurance commissioners found...

The teleprompter is still hot from all the Obama spit unleashed in his latest sincerely passionate denial that his administration knew anything, anything at all, about what is merely the latest scandal to rock the president, this time surrounding the Veterans Affairs fiasco, and already a brand new scandal is taking shape, this one Obama however will not be able to sweep as easily under the rug. The LA Times reports that the "Obama administration has quietly adjusted key provisions of its signature healthcare law to potentially make billions of additional taxpayer dollars available to the insurance industry if...

he Obama administration has quietly adjusted key provisions of its signature healthcare law to potentially make billions of additional taxpayer dollars available to the insurance industry if companies providing coverage through the Affordable Care Act lose money.. The move was buried in hundreds of pages of new regulations issued late last week. It comes as part of an intensive administration effort to hold down premium increases for next year, a top priority for the White House as the rates will be announced ahead of this fall's congressional elections. Administration officials for months have denied charges by opponents that they plan...

Los Angeles Times: The Obama administration has quietly adjusted key provisions of its signature health care law to potentially make billions of additional taxpayer dollars available to the insurance industry if companies providing coverage through the Affordable Care Act lose money. The move was buried in hundreds of pages of new regulations issued late last week. It comes as part of an intensive administration effort to hold down premium increases for next year, a top priority for the White House as the rates will be announced ahead of this fall's congressional elections.

Seeking to minimize the pain caused by his signature domestic accomplishment, President Obama has flagrantly rewritten Obamacare numerous times since it was first enacted in 2010. And unless Republicans make a stand this September, Obama will flagrantly break the law again, this time costing American taxpayers billions in illegal insurance company bailouts. This past October, millions of Americans began receiving cancellation notices from their health insurance companies informing them that, despite Obama's crystal clear promise to the contrary, they would not be able to keep their current health insurance plan. Politifact would go on to label this broken Obama promise...

The White House’s 2015 budget proposes spending $5.5 billion next year on an ObamaCare program that Republicans have labeled a “bailout” of the insurance industry. The Affordable Care Act creates a temporary pool of money, known as risk corridors, to pay insurers who enroll a higher-than-expected number of sick patients through 2016. The exchanges appear to be attracting older consumers, who tend to be sicker. The Health and Human Services Department has said that 25 percent of those who had signed up for ObamaCare coverage between October and December were between the ages of 18 and 34. That’s far below...

Last week I testified before the House Oversight committee on the “risk corridors” in the (ObamaCare) exchanges. Republicans claim that this is a device to bail out the insurance companies. Democrats, in the unusual position of defending the insurance companies, actually claimed that the government was going to make a “profit” because of it. I was in the uncomfortable position of not agreeing completely with either side. The Affordable Care Act creates a new health insurance marketplace (the exchange). But because of the great uncertainty about what buyers will enter the market and who will buy what product, the law...

1) 1 In 4 Voters Already Know Someone Who Has Lost Insurance because of Obamacare: One in four Americans have either lost their health insurance because of Obamacare or know someone who has, according to a new poll shared first with The Daily Caller. The YG Network Congressional District Poll of 1,652 likely voters in 11 competitive U.S. House districts indicates Obamacare will be a powerful issue that motivates voters in important races in 2014. Twenty-seven percent of respondents claimed knowing someone or personally receiving a health-insurance cancellation notice. 2) Almost all of the people signing up for Obamacare lost...

Last week, Moody’s rating agency lowered the outlook for health insurers from stable to negative, blaming Obamacare. Few Americans will shed tears for insurance companies. But the Moody’s announcement is a warning sign to taxpayers. They’ll be getting clobbered. Section 1342 of the Affordable Care Act forces taxpayers to make insurers whole for most of the losses incurred selling Obamacare exchange plans through 2016. The bailout is designed to conceal the failure of the president’s signature health law until he is out of office. No one in the Obama administration talked up the advantages of bailing out insurers. It was...

The big health insurance companies played a high-stakes double game throughout the 2009 health care fight, funding attacks on the so-called public option – an explicitly government-run competitor – while otherwise supporting the central elements of the bill that ultimately passed: vast taxpayer-funded subsidies flowing to their potential customers and a mandate requiring every American to buy their products. Yet the law is becoming such a disaster that the insurers stand to take losses in the new exchanges – losses that will largely be passed on to taxpayers under a provision called Risk Corridors. Risk Corridors are a de facto...

While the administration publicly expresses full confidence in its health care law, privately it fears one part of the system is so flawed it could bankrupt insurance companies and cripple ObamaCare itself. "Week after week, month after month," says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, "the Obama administration kept telling us everything's working fine, there's no problem and then they turn on a dime and fire their contractor." To justify a no-bid contract with Accenture after firing CGI as the lead contractor, the administration released documents from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Center...

While the administration publicly expresses full confidence in its health care law, privately it fears one part of the system is so flawed it could bankrupt insurance companies and cripple ObamaCare itself. "Week after week, month after month," says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, "the Obama administration kept telling us everything's working fine, there's no problem and then they turn on a dime and fire their contractor." To justify a no-bid contract with Accenture after firing CGI as the lead contractor, the administration released documents from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Center...

Moody’s Investor Service has changed its outlook for the U.S. health care insurance sector from stable to negative, citing Obamacare’s rollout and the uncertainty it brings. The private credit rating agency said potential fallout from the Affordable Care Act’s implementation — including changes to the individual market and the impact of the law’s “employer mandate” on commercial group plans in January 2015 — presents the greatest challenge to health insurers’ credit profile. Lower reimbursement rates among Medicare Advantage plans also are creating financial pressure, it said.

Moody’s announced Thursday it was downgrading its outlook for health insurers from stable to negative based on uncertainty related to ObamaCare. The credit rating agency cited an unstable environment because of the healthcare law’s difficult rollout, and projected that insurers would earn two percent less than forecast in 2014. “While we’ve had industry risks from regulatory changes on our radar for a while, the ongoing unstable and evolving environment is a key factor for our outlook change,” Moody’s Senior Vice President Stephen Zaharuk said in a statement. “The past few months have seen new regulations and announcements that impose operational...

You remember the “risk corridor” provisions, right? If a new ObamaCare plan comes in under budget, the insurer pays the difference between the actual cost and projected cost to HHS. If it comes in over budget, HHS pays the difference to the insurance. It’s a way for insurers to spread risk among the industry with HHS as middleman. (The bit in the excerpt about the White House modifying the rules for its new “transitional policy” is a reference to this.) Problem is, there’s no cap on how much HHS might need to pay out if lots and lots of plans come in...

They’re nervous. “We are becoming increasingly concerned about momentum that is quickly building among some leading conservatives for elimination of the risk corridor and reinsurance programs,” [Blue Cross Blue Shield Association CEO Scott] Serota wrote…“Their efforts, along with growing support for repealing the risk corridor and reinsurance programs, could combine to create a perfect storm to, at a minimum, dissuade the Administration from modifying risk corridor program rules to provide increased funding in light of the recent ‘transitional policy’ allowing insurers to offer consumers the option to renew their 2013 health plans for 2014,” Serota wrote.In attached talking points, seemingly...

Among the many legitimate criticisms of the 2008–09 Wall Street bailout was that it created a situation in which profits are private but losses are public, being borne by taxpayers who extended liberal loans and outright subsidies to various firms in order to head off total paralysis in the credit markets. Critics right and left regarded the combination of private profits and public losses as inherently objectionable — but Barack Obama and congressional Democrats apparently saw in the Wall Street bailout a model for health-insurance reform. And, surprise: Buried deep within the Affordable Care Act are not one but two...

Robert Laszewski—a prominent consultant to health insurance companies—recently wrote in a remarkably candid blog post that, while Obamacare is almost certain to cause insurance costs to skyrocket even higher than it already has, “insurers won’t be losing a lot of sleep over it.” How can this be? Because insurance companies won’t bear the cost of their own losses—at least not more than about a quarter of them. The other three-quarters will be borne by American taxpayers. For some reason, President Obama hasn’t talked about this particular feature of his signature legislation. Indeed, it’s bad enough that Obamacare is projected by...