This wasn't supposed to happen.With the mainstream media, at least the
majority that is left of center, flooded with story after story touting
Obamacare's success, the news coming this morning from Denver that Colorado's
largest nonprofit health insurer and participant in that state's insurance
exchange Colorado HealthOP is abruptly shutting down, forcing
80,000 Coloradans to find a new insurer for 2016, was a slap in the face for
the Obama administration's crowning achievement.
According to AP, the health insurer announced Friday that the state
Division of Insurance has de-certified it as an eligible insurance company.
That's because the cooperative relied on federal support, and federal authorities announced last month
they wouldn't be able to pay most of what they owed in a program designed to
help health insurance co-ops get established.
Wait, wasn't the whole point behind Obamacare to subsidize health insurance
for everyone, and especially the poor? Or was the whole point of the
"Affordable" Care Act merely to herd as many Americans into the
clutches of the few for-profits, after the non-profit cooperatives finally read
the fine print and realized they have no chance of being profitable under the
new regime?
The plot thickens: in a statement announcing its closure Friday, Colorado
HealthOP said it was "well on its way" to repaying some $72.3 million
it has borrowed from the federal fund. The co-op reported a net loss of $23
million last year. In other words, the company burned through some $23 million
in taxpayer funds and it didn't even get a lousy shirt to show for it.
if our revenues exceed our costs, the surplus
will be reinvested to directly benefit members—through lower premiums, expanded
benefits, or quality improvements.
Well, no risk of that ever happening now. What the insurer failed to point
out is that if costs exceed its revenues, it will be promptly liquidated and
massive corporations will be the sole beneficiaries.
Naturally, the CEO was furious: Colorado HealthOP CEO Julia Hutchins called
the de-certification "irresponsible
and premature."
She is not alone - as it turns out HealthOP was just the fifth casualty of
a program which with every passing months is being exposed as nothing but a
tax-backed piggy bank for the mega insurance corporations. "The Colorado announcement makes the co-op at
least the fifth in the nation to collapse. Similar nonprofit insurers
have already failed in Louisiana, Iowa/Nebraska, Nevada and New York. A health
insurance cooperative in Tennessee announced this week that it would stop
offering new policies.
Expect even more failures ahead of open enrollment for 2016 starts on
November 1. The Colorado Division of Insurance must first certify insurers
before they're allowed to sell plans, so the de-certification essentially puts
Colorado HealthOP out of business.
Back to the HealthOP CEO who added that "the Division has let local
and national politics hurt Coloradans' access to low-cost healthcare options
and assessed Colorado taxpayers with significant avoidable costs,"
Hutchins said in the statement.
Actually they became unavoidable the moment the deeply compromised and
ideologically partisan Supreme Court imposed the Obamacare tax on Americans,
with few if any realizing the monetary implications of the new insurance
regime.
While it won't provide much comfort to Colorado HealthOp, which is now
winding down, its board of directors has requesting that the state allow a
board-appointed independent consumer protection ombudsman to assist through the
shut-down. In other words, even more millions in taxpayer funds will now be
spent to liquidate the health insurer.
And while the lame duck president hardly cared as his legacy achievement
will soon be some other president's problem, Republicans quickly took to
gloating and pointed to the co-op's closure as "a sad but predictable outcome."
"Taxpayers are on the hook for millions of dollars in loans given out
to the CO-OP, money that will likely never be repaid," U.S. Sen. Cory
Gardner said in a statement after the announcement. "The years since Obamacare's passage have been
marked by crisis after crisis in healthcare, and it's far past time for a new
plan."
But wait, there's more. Now that the numbers are being crunched, and
hyperbole and propaganda are finally making way for math, someone figured out
that Colorado HealthOP's closure could be bad news for everyone shopping on
Colorado's health insurance exchange.
A Republican state lawmaker who serves on an oversight committee that has
reviewed Colorado HealthOP's finances, Rep. Lang Sias of Arvada, said "rates for everyone are expected to
go up next year. Colorado HealthOP accounted for nearly 40 percent of the
exchange's total customers."
"They're all going to be paying more, on average, I would
expect," Sias said.
And as more Americans get letters in the mail such as the one below kindly informing them their health
insurance premiums are rising by 60% crushing any desire to splurge modest
"gas savings" on discretionary purchases... ... expect complaints
about soaring health insurance prices, to hit - first in Colorado and then
everywhere else.
Comments
The article shows a premium increase notice for 11/1/15
showing the monthly premium going from $433.62 to $682.65 for a 0 deductible
medical plan. That’s a $249.03 increase and an increase of 57.4%.
When Obamacare decided to require preventive, it added
coverage most consumers would not buy.
It also didn’t end the collusion between Big Pharma and the AMA and FDA
to ensure “no end in sight” prices for drugs and protocols that don’t
work. It opened the door to the
bottomless pit.
80,000 is only 1.5% of the 5.3 million population of
Colorado, so if these folks can get basic major medical, they should be ok
without Obamacare. We all would be ok
without Obamacare.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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