Free Republic

Warning that the latest ObamaCare "fix" could compel the federal government to bail out insurance companies, Republican senators have introduced a bill to prevent taxpayer funds from being used to prop up the industry. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., along with a half-dozen other Republican senators, introduced the "ObamaCare Taxpayer Bailout Prevention Act" on Tuesday. It would strip a provision in the Affordable Care Act pertaining to so-called "risk corridors," which could allow the government to pay insurance companies to offset financial losses. Rubio calls it a "blank check" for the industry. "The idea that the federal government should be bailing...

President Barack Obama had some bad news for the insurance company CEOs who met him at the White House: His “fix” might cost them. Obama asked the CEOs to reinstate millions of Americans’ health insurance plans that were cancelled because they fell short of coverage requirements under the law, according to two executives who attended the session Friday. The president offered the execs some sweeteners, but admitted they won’t necessarily add up to enough to cover the full brunt of added costs that the changes to the insurance market could create. The president’s proposed “fix” to the wave of plan...

This must have been one of those backroom deals we heard so much about… Stuffed inside the Obamacare law passed by Democrats (with no Republican votes) is a provision that will reimburse insurance companies up to 80% of their losses due to Obamacare. Melissa Francis reported on FOX News: “Marco Rubio has been out highlighting the fact that there is this ‘risk corridor’ where written into this law that nobody read is this idea that is insurance companies have 3% higher costs than they estimated as a result of who’s in these pools, they can recoup 50% of that money...

Health insurance companies could see higher government payments because of President Obama's administrative move to address the criticism over canceled health plans. White House spokesman Jay Carney suggested Friday that federal health officials would raise payments to insurance companies should the policy shift bring on unexpected costs. "If the costs are higher, then [the Department of Health and Human Services] can mitigate those costs with insurers," Carney said at a briefing.

Excellent catch by Chris Jacobs at Heritage. If you read the post about Rubio’s anti-bailout bill, you already know what “risk corridor” means. -snip- So are insurance company executives, of course; they’re meeting with Obama today to express their “concern.” So here’s a pot-sweetener for them from CMS in the nick of time: If they decide to un-cancel some plans and end up taking a beating financially from the adverse selection that results, Uncle Sam will be there to make everything right. I must have read three dozen blog posts yesterday wondering how O would be able to keep insurers...

President Barack Obama said he and health care executives will be “brainstorming” ways to fix his troubled health care law at a Roosevelt Room meeting Friday afternoon. -snip- The meeting comes a day after Obama announced health care plans that don’t meet Affordable Care Act standards could still be sold to existing individual market customers. Obama said he and other White House officials would be asking the executives for their input on how best to implement the law.

The basic idea that for the first three years of Obamacare, the Treasury has committed to protecting against an industry-wide death spiral — and that could well occur if insurance customers continue to avoid the Obamacare exchanges...This is well worth a vote, because it will highlight the bailout provision, which most Americans aren’t aware of at all...

Obamacare includes a provision that allows the federal government to funnel taxpayer dollars to insurers that face the prospect of losing too much money under the new health care law, and conservative critics want to repeal it. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the provision could amount to a bailout of the insurance industry, which stands to lose if the troubled Obamacare exchanges fail to enroll enough people to make the system financially viable. -snip- Rubio's office was circulating the bill, first reported by Politico, to other senators on Friday. “I expect we'll introduce [it] as soon as possible next week,”...

Goooood politics. I’m 90 percent sure it won’t pass, but last week I would have told you I was 100 percent sure. At the rate O and his boondoggle are melting down on the Hill, there’s no down side to trying to force Democrats to vote on all sorts of bills that would chip away at parts of O-Care. Worst-case scenario: They fail but with some Democratic support, which means a rolling PR disaster for the White House and a very small margin of error going forward lest the Democratic turncoats in Congress start thinking maybe it’d be better to...

In this morning's interview Former Cigna exec seems to be cautiously optimistic about Obama's "fix" and the future of Obamacare.

President Obama’s decision to let insurers offer limited plans that do not meet ObamaCare’s requirements could sink the entire healthcare law, the head of the group representing state insurance commissioners said Friday. “It threatens the solvency of the system and it threatens to spike the cost to policyholders across the board,” said Jim Donelon, president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). Donelon argued on CNN that the White House proposal is not logistically feasible and would be an administrative nightmare. He said premium prices have been set based on assumptions about what plans would be available. “The problem...

EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Marco Rubio plans to introduce legislation next week to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s “risk corridor” provision, which would give government payments to health plans with higher than expected costs. A Rubio aide: “The President's announcement … increases the likelihood of a federal bailout of insurance companies … Rubio will introduce legislation … that will ensure the Obama Administration doesn't have unaccountable blank check-writing authority … [T]he current law gives the HHS Secretary broad authority in this area with no Congressional approval/oversight. Our legislation will … protect … taxpayers from potentially having to bail out the insurance industry.”

President Obama's decision to let people keep their existing health insurance policies through 2014, if their health insurance company continues to offer them, could end up costing the federal government money under the so-called risk corridor provision of the Affordable Care Act. -snip- It is too late to change the premiums that have been approved for 2014 to account for changes in the risk pool, says Cori Uccello, senior health fellow with the American Academy of Actuaries. However, under the risk corridor provision, "if insurers' losses exceed a certain percentage, the government will pay part of that loss." -snip- In...

President Barack Obama will meet on Friday with insurance industry executives to discuss changes that he has proposed to his signature healthcare law to address the outcry over insurance policy cancellations, a White House official said. The meeting comes a day after the president, under fire for the botched rollout of his top domestic policy achievement, announced he would allow individuals to keep insurance policies that were being canceled under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare. The health law has stumbled in its early phases, first because the website designed to sign up consumers malfunctioned, and then...

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) today released guidance to state insurance commissioners implementing President Obama’s “fix” for people losing their insurance. Not only does it violate the explicit text of Obamacare itself, but it also raises the possibility of insurers getting access to a new pool of bailout funds. As previously reported, the Administration’s latest plan waives many of the costly mandates included in Obamacare that are scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2014. The guidance says that these requirements will be waived—in clear violation of the text of the law—for one year for all plans...

Washington, DC – America’s Health Insurance Plans’ (AHIP) President and CEO Karen Ignagni released the following statement on today’s announcement by the administration related to policy cancellations: “Making sure consumers have secure, affordable coverage is health plans' top priority. The only reason consumers are getting notices about their current coverage changing is because the ACA requires all policies to cover a broad range of benefits that go beyond what many people choose to purchase today. “Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums for consumers....

Health insurance plans are not pulling any punches when it comes to their frustration with today's White House announcement. This is a statement that Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, just put out: “Making sure consumers have secure, affordable coverage is health plans' top priority. The only reason consumers are getting notices about their current coverage changing is because the ACA requires all policies to cover a broad range of benefits that go beyond what many people choose to purchase today. “Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law could destabilize the...

WASHINGTON–President Barack Obama will offer a fix for people facing health insurance policy cancellations as a result of his Obamacare health care law today at 11:35 a.m. ET. Earlier Thursday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi D-Calif., Obama will take action for people whose health insurance policies were cancelled as a result of his Obamacare health care law while House Democrats are also working on a plan. “The president will offer a proposal today is my understanding and we have our own proposal which we think is really good. But we’ll see. And it has to be done in the next...

The troubled launch of Health Care.gov has raised plenty of questions about whether young, healthy people will enroll in coverage—and, if they don't, whether insurance companies will have to raise their premiums or give up on Obama- care's new insurance markets altogether. But the law's authors built in a safety net to help guard against that worst-case scenario. In essence, it's an insurance policy for insurance companies. The backstop is an approach known as the "three R's." And health care experts say that, taken together, the three prongs will help insurers not only grapple with the transition to the new...

Amazing stuff via Mediaite. The “Keep Your Plan Act” is Fred Upton’s bill, which Jay Carney spent a few minutes attacking at today’s press briefing because it would make canceled plans available to all consumers, not just the ones who’d been enrolled in those plans before. That would be a disaster for the insurance industry. Healthy people would flee the new, more expensive plans for the resurrected cheaper ones, leaving no one in the new risk pool except sick people with very expensive treatments. That means either heavy losses for insurers, steep premium hikes next year to make up the...