Free Republic

The Obamacare insurance co-ops have collapsed. Of the original 23, only three are expected to survive past 2017. The insurance companies are losing hundreds of millions of dollars on the healthcare insurance exchanges. Their reaction is to pull out of a number of them in order to reduce their exposure; a process they repeatedly employ to shed under-performing products called “purging”. To make up for these losses, insurers are expected to raise 2017 premiums across the board on all policies. The Kaiser Foundation expects an average increase of nine percent for policies on the exchanges, but in the individual market,...

Federal health officials refuse to give Congress hundreds of subpoenaed documents on Obamacare’s failed co-ops so that people will continue enrolling in the deeply troubled program, a congressional leader said Tuesday. Twelve of the 23 co-ops created in 2011 under Obamacare at a cost of $2.4 billion have failed, and another eight of the remaining 11 are likely to go under this year. But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) won’t hand over documents subpoenaed months ago by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz  82% , who chairs the House...

Who gets paid first when an ObamaCare co-op goes belly up: the doctors and hospitals that cared for co-op enrollees or the federal government, which caused the co-op mess in the first place? If the Obama administration has it way, Uncle Sam will be at the head of the line to recoup losses, quite possibly leaving healthcare providers in the lurch, reported the Daily Caller.

An official with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told lawmakers last week that eight of the 11 remaining Obamacare co-ops have been selected for "corrective action plans" and "enhanced oversight." Twenty-three co-ops were created under the president's health care overhaul, and so far more than half have collapsed and are no longer selling plans in the marketplace. The 12 co-ops that went out of business operated in Arizona, Michigan, Utah, Kentucky, New York, Nevada, Louisiana, Oregon, Colorado, Tennessee, South Carolina and a co-op serving Iowa and Nebraska. The agency's chief operating officer, Dr. Mandy Cohen, told the House...

The price of the benchmark ObamaCare plan will jump by 7.5 percent on average next year, according to data released Monday. The premium increase is far more than last year’s 2 percent jump among benchmark silver plans. Those plans, the second-lowest cost option among silver plans, are important because they determine healthcare subsidies for people living in that area, even if they pick a different tiered plan. ... The increase for next year does not take into account the billions of dollars in government subsidies that are given to people on the exchanges. It also doesn’t include the dozen state...

A South Carolina health insurer has become the ninth insurance cooperative formed nationwide under the Affordable Care Act to fold. Consumers' Choice Health Insurance Co. said Thursday that it will not sell policies in 2016, a decision that will leave 67,000 individuals and business customers looking for new coverage. Ray Farmer, director of the South Carolina Department of Insurance, said Consumers' Choice and state regulators reached a mutual decision to shut down the company's business. He said the company was in a "financially hazardous condition." ... a solid new slogan for the entire law. The New York Times analyzes the...

It’s an Obamacare story with every imaginable outrage — blatant conflicts of interest, millions of tax dollars going to political cronies, thousands of Americans left without health insurance, lavish pay for incompetent executives, federal funds diverted illegally, multiple congressional investigations, insider trading convictions and big decisions made behind closed doors. Tragically, there is even a child abuser. But search the New York Times web site for “Obamacare co-ops” and nothing comes up. Just three entries appear for the same search on the Washington Post web site. Not so, Richard Pollock of the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group. Pollock has...

Under resident Barack Obama's overhaul, taxpayers provided $2.4 billion in loans to get the co-ops going, but only one out of 23 -- the one in Maine -- made money last year ... Another one, the Iowa/Nebraska co-op, was shut down by regulators over financial concerns. The audit by the Health and Human Services inspector general's office also found that 13 of the 23 lagged far behind their 2014 enrollment projections. The probe raised concerns about whether federal loans will be repaid, and ... Just last week, the Louisiana Health Cooperative announced it would cease offering coverage next year

Multiple federal investigations are probing the $2 billion Obamacare co-op loan program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, The Washington Examiner has learned. Investigators from two separate offices within HHS's Office of Inspector General are looking closely at the co-op program being fast-tracked under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The Obamacare co-op program is also the focus of examinations by the House Energy and Commerce and Oversight and Government Reform committees headed, respectively, by Rep. Fred Upton, R-MI, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA. Twenty-four newly established Obamacare co-ops in 25 states hope to...