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Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Another one bites the dust-9th Obamacare co-op implodes



It seems Mr. Farmer may have stumbled upon a solid new slogan for the entire law. The New York Times analyzes the "cascading failures" of Obamacare co-ops across the country:
The grim announcements keep coming, picking up pace in recent weeks. About a third, or eight, alternative health insurers created under President Obama’s health care law to spur competition that might have made coverage less expensive for consumers are shutting down. The three largest are among that number. Only 14 of the so-called cooperatives are still standing, some precariously. The toll of failed co-op insurers, which were intended to challenge dominant companies that wield considerable power to dictate prices, has left about 500,000 customers scrambling to find health insurance for next year...At a time when the industry is experiencing a wave of consolidation, with giants like Anthem and Aetna planning to buy their smaller rivals, the vanishing co-ops will leave some consumers with fewer choices — and potentially higher prices...The shuttering of these start-ups amounts to what could be a loss of nearly $1 billion in federal loans provided to help them get started. And the cascading series of failures has also led to skepticism about the Obama administration’s commitment to this venture. Some policy analysts say they were doomed from the beginning.
Doomed from the beginning. So why flush a billion taxpayer dollars setting them up? Intraparty Democratic politics, the Times reports: "Created as a concession to Democrats who wanted the health care law to include a government-run plan as an alternative to private insurers, the co-ops faced significant hurdles from the start." Liberal Democrats demanded a "public option" within Obamacare, which critics (and supporters) rightly predicted would directly facilitate the demise of America's private health insurance industry. With so many elected Democrats still peddling the "keep your plan" fiction at the time, Obamacare's government option provision was deemed politically unviable and abandoned. The co-ops were an expensive consolation prize to its supporters. Ironically, now that this experiment is collapsing, even more Americans are being betrayed by the false assurance that they'd be able to maintain their preferred plans. Democrats, predictably, are blaming Republicans for the shortcomings of a fatally flawed law that was crafted and passed exclusively by Democrats....

Obamacare supporters pledged that the "Affordable" Care Act would drastically reduce healthcare costs for all Americans. But hey, at least consumers will be treated to an "upgraded government website," two full years after Healthcare.gov crashed and burned on the launchpad.

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