We Saw This Coming A Mile Away: Obama Illegally Increases Bailout Protection For Health Care Insurers


By Caroline Schaeffer
13 hours ago



It was inevitable: health insurers setting artificially low premiums for customers in order to make Obamacare an easier pill to swallow would not end up being financially viable for insurance companies. The law mandates that prices for older, sicker patients are equitable with premiums for the young and healthy. So unless the younger generation enrolled in droves, this mandate would prove a financial disaster. And this worst-case scenario is exactly what’s happening.
So the White House inserted a clause into the Affordable Care Act which made the law more palatable for health care insurers: a taxpayer-funded bailout option to protect the companies from losses – losses directly caused by Obamacare – should it be necessary. And we know now that it’s going to be necessary.
The problem is – for the bailout to work, it’s going to have be much, much bigger. It’s that bad.
So, over the weekend, the White House quietly upped the bailout protection. This illegal move is just the latest in a long string of purely political executive actions which the President has taken in order to make his signature law more acceptable to the public, especially before the November midterm elections.
Fox News reports outraged Representatives directly addressed the bailout option in a hearing with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who admitted that the Administration had never attempted to estimate what the bailout might cost the taxpayers. This isn’t surprising, coming from the party that said, “We have to pass the bill, so that you can find out what’s in it.” They weren’t kidding.
What’s left in the grab-bag of costly Obamacare surprises? I don’t think we want to find out.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/03/1224...care-insurers/