Next Big Billions $ Bailout May Go To ObamaCare Health Insurers.

Next Big Billions $ Bailout May Go To ObamaCare Health Insurers. (NI).

It didn't get much attention outside Capitol Hill, but late last week House Republican leaders scuttled a vote to repeal an ObamaCare bailout plan for major heath insurance companies if they lose money on new Affordable Care Act policies.

Taxpayers could be on the hook for billions of dollars of payouts for ACA insurance policies that incur losses that exceed premiums collected.

Despite pleas from conservatives to hold a vote to repeal the sham subsidy program to the biggest insurers — like Aetna (NYSE:AET), Cigna (NYSE:CI) and Humana (NYSE:HUM) — our sources tell us the House leadership reportedly said that it "ran out of time to hold a roll call vote."

Conservative lawmakers also fear that in the anticipated lame-duck session in December, Republicans will allow the Obama administration a de facto blank check to make payments to insurance companies that lose money on ObamaCare policies without congressional approval.

The bailout measure is the Affordable Care Act's controversial "risk corridor" program, which provides financial "protection" against losses to insurers that sponsor exchange plans. The idea of this short-term program was to create a pool of funds from the profits of some insurers with ObamaCare plans to offset the losses of others.

A 2013 analysis by the Society of Actuaries says that the risk corridors program "provides a strong incentive for insurers to participate in the health insurance exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act." Perhaps too strong an incentive, budget experts worry.

Under the program, if "allowable costs" to an insurer top 103% of the "target amount," the feds subsidize half of those excess payments. The subsidy climbs to 80% of allowable costs that exceed 108% of the target amount. The potential liability to taxpayers is "uncapped," so the sky is the limit on losses.

The White House understands the stakes. Without these subsidized risk corridors to backstop the ObamaCare plans, insurance companies will stop issuing ACA plans, and the entire program could be derailed.

The most recent data on ACA plans suggest that Rubio is right. Congressional oversight hearings found surveys of insurers showing that almost all expect an ObamaCare reimbursement check from the risk corridors in excess of payments made.

If nearly all insurers are expecting a net cash payment, how can the program pay for itself?

Obama wants every American to have health insurance regardless of the cost. The net cost in the first year alone to the risk corridor program could near $1 billion. That's just a start.

Obama is asserting executive authority to subsidize money-losing plans. Rubio and nine other Senators say that he needs a congressional appropriation under the Constitution. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., chair of the House subcommittee that handles health appropriations, made the same point in a recent letter to the White House.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office agrees, ruling Tuesday that the Department of Health and Human Services can't provide funds to insurers for excessive losses on ObamaCare plans without Congress' formal approval.

But again Republicans may duck this fight and provide the bailout funding in a lame-duck session.

"A year-end budget deal will be hard to stop," a top Senate GOP health care staffer said. "If there is Republican resistance, Obama may threaten a government shutdown to get his way. Don't be surprised if we surrender."

Meanwhile, conservatives at organizations such as Heritage Action are denouncing this subsidy plan as "corporate welfare" for the insurance lobby. They worry that Republicans have the policy and politics wrong. A new McLaughlin and Associates poll found that 81% of Americans oppose any health insurance company bailout.

What is especially perplexing is that Republicans may get blamed for a bailout to an industry that sided with the White House in passing ObamaCare in the first place.

"The Democrats who passed ObamaCare are accusing Republicans of being in the pocket of health insurance companies," notes Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. "They accuse Republicans of wanting 'to put insurance companies back in charge of Americans' health care.' Meanwhile, voters would like the party to take a clear stand against cronyism, which benefits well-connected operatives in Washington at the expense of citizens in the heartland."

He calls killing the risk corridor program a "no-brainer" because it is the best way to kill ObamaCare altogether. But right now Republicans aren't listening. Hmmm.....Starve the beast.....shut of the money. Read the full story here.

Iran Pokes Fun at US with ‘Rouhanicare’

Iran Pokes Fun at US with ‘Rouhanicare’.TheHill.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday announced his plan to provide health insurance to all Iranians under the moniker Rouhanicare - a nod to America’s own ObamaCare.

“Gov will extend medical insurance to all Iranians,” Rouhani said in a tweet on his English-language Twitter account.

“First step will be to cover 5mn uninsured Iranians by the social safety net. #RouhaniCare.”

The tongue-in-cheek reference from the media-savvy, U.K.-educated Iranian leader may be part of his effort to ingratiate himself with the United States and other western countries. Israeli leaders and many Republicans on Capitol Hill believe Rouhani is cleverly trying to trick the West into dismantling the international sanctions regime even as Iran continues to secretly pursue a nuclear weapon.Read the full story here.

'Imperial President' Obama Considering Three Year Extension To Obamacare.

'Imperial President' Obama Considering Three Year Extension To Obamacare.HT: Zerohedge.

While Washington debates over what is the proper explanation of the CBO's report which explicitly states that millions of workers will drop out of the labor force over the next decade thanks to Obamacare, Obama himself may have finally thrown in the towel, realizing that the longer the full implementation of Obamacare is delayed, the longer the myth that it is a viable Ponzi scheme - as opposed to non-viable - can persist.

Perhaps this explains why AP reports that the White House is now considering an extension of the president's decision to let people keep their individual insurance policies even if they are not compliant with the health care overhaul, according to two top industry officials.

From AP:

Avalere Health CEO Dan Mendelson said Thursday that the administration may let policyholders keep that coverage for an additional three years, stressing that no decision has been made. Policymakers are waiting to see what rate hikes health insurers plan for the insurance exchanges that are key to the overhaul's coverage expansions.
"The administration is entertaining a range of options to ensure that this individual market has stability to it and that would be one thing that they could do," he said.
Avalere Health is a market analysis firm, but Mendelson said his company was not advising the administration on exchange policy. He said he has had informal discussions with administration officials about the extension, but he didn't identify them.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, Joanne Peters, said "We are continuing to examine all sorts of ways to provide consumers with more choices and to smooth the transition as we implement the law."

Earlier, Mark Bertolini, Chairman and CEO of Aetna and the nation's third largest insurer, told analysts during his earnings call that he had heard the plans may be extended. Perhaps a more important thing Bertolini said is that his company may pull out of markets if the Medicare cuts are too high, adding that 2015 may be challenging due to medicare cuts. This may have been the final straw that pushed the administration into action.

However, even a longer extension than was rumored previously will hardly help reinstate the policies of all those millions who lost coverage in the lead up to the Obamacare enactment as insurance companies know that terms will once again change eventually, so why go through the headache of temporary reinstatement just to cut all those "non-compliant" individuals once again?

Individual policyholders were hit with a wave of cancellation notices last year because their coverage was less robust than what is required under the law, and many states allowed insurance companies to simply cancel them.
The wave of cancellation notices — at least 4.7 million of them — hit just when the new HealthCare.gov website was experiencing some of its worst technical problems, and it undercut the president's well-publicized promise that if you liked your plan you could keep it.

You couldn't.

At first the White House went into damage-control mode, arguing that many of the cancelled plans were "junk" insurance and consumers would be better off with the broader coverage available through the health care law's new insurance markets.
But soon Obama was forced to reverse course, urging insurers and state regulators to allow policyholders to keep their existing plans for an additional year. Most states complied with the request.
Now the administration is considering adding more years to this extension to avoid another wave of problems if rates on the exchange climb too high and people are left without an affordable coverage option. Health insurers are supposed to submit by May the rates they want to charge on the exchanges next year.

Actually, the only reason why Obama is suddenly willing to compromise over every aspect of his "crowning achievement" is that finally its tactical, and strategic failure has become clear for all to see.
So it would be best to enact it piecemeal, and claim success for whatever legacy aspects of the system are working, while blasting everything that his unprecedentedly complicated, centrally-planned contraption has unleashed.
Finally, why three years? Because by then Obama will be gone (absent some very radical changes to presidential term rules), and Obamacare will be someone else's problem.

The longer the Obama presidency continues, the more America's status as a superpower ebbs away.

Sounds more like a 'Kindergarten' message

The longer the Obama presidency continues, the more America's status as a superpower ebbs away.HT : Guardian. By Con Coughlin.

US government shutdown: Barack Obama is presiding over the end of America's superpower status.

For a country that is supposed to be the most powerful in the world, the fact that Americans have today woken up to find large swathes of their nation closed for business is humiliating.

Thanks to President Barack Obama obduracy over his flagship healthcare policy, Democrats and Republicans have failed to reach agreement in Congress on the federal budget, forcing the US Government to close down for the first time in 17 years, with around 700,000 federal workers being placed on indefinite leave.

While the White House insists that essential areas of the government, such as the military, will continue to function, the shut down represents yet a further blow to the prestige of the Obama administration at a time when it is still reeling from its inept handling of the recent Syrian crisis.

There was a time not so long ago when the world looked to America for both political and economic leadership. But now that can no longer be taken for granted thanks to Mr Obama's inability to provide decisive leadership on either front.

Republicans rightly argue that by pressing ahead with Obamacare before the implications of the programme have been properly assessed risks adding to America's debt mountain at a time when the American economy is still recovering from the biggest economic crisis in recent history.

The emergence of Russia, meanwhile, as the main power broker in the Syria crisis has severely damaged America's standing as a major global player.

In short, the longer the Obama presidency continues, the more America's status as a superpower ebbs away.