Posted on 01/11/2014 4:37:41 PM PST by SeekAndFind
“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 directed at Republican lawmakers opposed to risk corridors and reinsurance, BCBSA is asking members to argue that eliminating the risk corridors will lead to the eventual downfall of Obamacare and lead to a single-payer system: “It jeopardizes the entire private health insurance market and will ultimately lead to a single-payer system. Furthermore, it will close the door to pro-competitive health care reform alternatives.”
One bolded talking point, “use with appropriate audiences only,” charges that “eliminating these programs will result in massive premium increases and could cause private insurers to become insolvent.” In Serota’s email, however, this point is intended for Democrats only.
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 over budget — a plausible scenario given the whispers from Humana about what it’s seeing among the demographic mix of ObamaCare enrollees so far. If too many plans have lopsided numbers of sick enrollees who need expensive treatments and few healthy ones to supply the revenue needed to offset that expense, HHS could be on the hook for the shortfall via a de facto bailout — unless Congress repeals the risk corridor provisions, in which case the insurers will be stuck with the bill. How many of them will be able to cover it and how many will go belly up? Of the ones who stay in business, how many will have to charge exorbitant premiums next year to make up for their losses? And if premiums soar, some portion of their consumers are bound to cancel their plans, which means even less revenue for the insurers and the need for even higher premiums, etc. That’s the “death spiral,” and in theory that’s where single-payer comes in. If the insurance industry melts down because Congress cut its financial lifeline, what replaces it?
What’s fascinating about the BCBS talking points is that, in light of the rumblings on the left lately about single-payer, they may actually hurt the industry at this point more than they help. The “single-payer” talk won’t scare Republicans; they know they’re likely to have more control of Congress next year, not less, and they’re eager to find a weak spot in the Jenga tower that is ObamaCare that might bring the whole thing down. Killing the risk corridor could do it. Meanwhile, the “single-payer” talk might entice Democrats. Plenty of them, like Michael Moore and Noam Scheiber, defend ObamaCare not out of love but out of dutiful partisan obligation. They hate insurance companies and would leap at the chance to replace them with a government alternative but they’re stuck with the O-Care model for the time being. If the industry implodes, though, they’ll have a fully-formed alternative ready to go in the form of “Medicare for all.” And of course, as a matter of basic retail politics, Democrats want to be seen as anti-bailout as much as Republicans do, especially before a midterm election. Even assuming that Obama would veto a bailout repeal in the name of protecting his new partners in the industry, there’ll be intense political pressure on Democrats to cross the aisle and vote with the GOP to override it. I don’t think they’d get to 67 votes — the wound to ObamaCare, on which they’ve already spent so much political capital, would be too grave to inflict it so soon — but the politics of it would be attractive and we already know that they’re not averse to short-sighted political “fixes” to the law that actually make the industry’s adverse-selection problems worse. Between nervous red-state centrists like Mark Pryor who want to signal their unhappiness with O-Care and ideological leftists like Bernie Sanders who want to smash the insurance industry, how many Democratic votes might they get? Enough to get to 60 and force an Obama veto at least, right?
Exit question via Bob Laszewski: What happens when the “risk corridor” expires in 2017? Exit answer: Maybe nothing. By that point, U.S. health insurance will be so dominated by the exchanges and the penalty for not complying with the mandate will be so steep that you’ll have no choice but to sign up and pay what they want.
Anyone else get that sinking feeling that rebellion is the only option left?
That was the whole point of passing ObamaCare....that’s why nobody had to read what was actually in it.
They knew it was just an intermediate step to their ultimate goal, single payer.
Wow. Those two words alone should make anyone turn around and run the other way. Holy cow, what platinum-plated tin-horn crap.
"Risk corridor." You screw with free market forces, you create a corridor right into a drain, like a sink.
As it is, the modern "market" for health insurance began in the first place because government screwed with the free market by disallowing certain pay levels without some penalty, so businesses started offereing health insurance as a non-income perk.
A generation later, it's an entitlement, a responsibility of employers and if not them -- why, the government!
"Risk corridors." I can think of a corridor these nationalized health care statists can shove up their ... bah!!
It will be interesting to see if the blues try to keep this thing going and the private insurers bail out quick enough to stay solvent. Can this be done prior to the group mandates.
There won’t be companies entering the market if there is no money to be made. The feds have screwed it up.
It going to go to single payer anyway. Sounds like BCBS is trying to scam the taxpayers.
Obamacare is working as planned. Pray for America and your children.
BCBS was complicit in allowing the Tojan horse of Obama are to pass congress. Their naive stupidity astounds me
No more bailouts.
Correct.
And not just inheritance, but liens can be placed against real property while you are still living. So, try to sell that house to fund your retirement with a lien against the property. The real fun is about to begin.
It ain’t a perfect re-enactment, but still you are begging the question. If the Blues won’t “repent” then they are going to soon be forced to sing the blues — along with the rest of us who will be looking as fondly back to them as we do to even our liberal American forefathers. Up to Republicans whether to be “hard assed” about it. I recommend not to be that way, given that we have to pull together to fix the situation of a recipe for the impossible that is called Obamacare. But there could be a contingent deal. Work out a return to private enterprise plan, or get starved out from those who will.
Oh, and please check Forbes, IBD, or The Wall Street Journal if you have any doubt that healthcare insurance giants' stocks did indeed soar with the PPACA roll-out.
But this is the Internet, and just like you, I could be anyone. So don't take my word for it -- because I am most certainly not taking yours, which is 100% nonsense.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/58320#.UtIbn55dUus
http://www.nhteapartycoalition.org/tea/2013/08/06/insurance-companies-helped-write-obamacare/
A few choice quotes, for your education:
Big insurers were omnipresent during the ObamaCare negotiations. Their most effective negotiator was Karen Ignagni, CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry’s leading lobby. Washingtonian magazine called her one of the top three “Top Guns” of all trade association heads, and she proved it with ObamaCare.
In March 2009, Ignagni promised President Obama: “You have our commitment to play, to contribute, and to help pass health care reform this year.” And play she did.
Ignagni and AHIP members participated in hundreds of meetings and spent millions of dollars to shape the final bill. Between January 2007 and August 2012, the political action committees of AHIP and the 11 largest health insurance companies gave $10.2 million to federal politicians, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
As for doctors? Yes many of the rank and file are absolutely against it. But the AMA, which represents about 40% of doctors, was indeed endorsing 0bamacare with a full throated roar.
BRING IT !
It is inevitable that ObamaCommieCare must end badly.
Let it be now so my Grandchildren are spared the cruel effect of ObamaScoialized Health Insurance Tax, or OSHIT!
Sounds like a lot of folks are going to get lessons in the consequences of being clueless, in the school of hard knocks.
As much as we might like to push that whole gaggle of complicit insurers down the stairs, however, unless somehow we can reinvent the healthcare finance world completely independently before the Blues become a fond memory, we are stuck having to redeem that resource. I mean what else would you really do, once YOU return to reality?
...I mean, there is an advantage to being known as the guys who saved their skin. They will probably eat out of your hand for a good long time.
Because for years after the Eighteenth Amendment, no one could buy a drink anywhere.
Long before the insurers are in any danger of going under, they will be able to exert the kind of pressure for repeal that they exerted for passage IN SPADES.
What they expect is that no one is going to call their bluff. Sorry, I'm not folding without calling them. Given what the government has done with healthcare so far, there is going to be absolutely ZERO pressure to pass a single payer plan. Whatever happens to existing insurers, there is never going to be any pressure to do that. The pressure for single payer will become enormous if we curl up like a bunch of puss!es and give them what they want, while Rat politicians scream for years about how taxpayers and "the Republican Plan" are holding up Big Healthcare.
No thanks. What reality do you live in?
In a decade or so they’ll run out of property to seize. Then what? Idiots!
If this one page bill doesn't work, I highly doubt one drafted by the current Congress will.
Yep. We either pay for the bailout or we pay for "free" insurance for everyone. Part of obama's removal of the middle class.
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