ObamaCare Insurance Risk Corridor Nearly Depleted, S&P Warns

Obamacare is a failure many times over no matter how the administration and the propaganda machine spins it.  Increased costs, increased emergency room visits, lower enrollment rates than predicted and bankrupt healthcare 'coops' are just a few of the failings of  Barack Obama's signature healthcare law.  Executive action delaying the rest of the roll-out until next year and later will not stop the inevitable failure of Obamacare.  As The Hill reports, Obamacare was sold using many BIG lies as a few more come to light.

A key ObamaCare program intended to cushion health insurers from high costs is facing a massive cash shortage going into 2016, Standard and Poor’s said Thursday. 

Under the so-called “risk corridor” program, the Obama administration charges insurers with more-than-expected profits and redistributes the money to plans with losses.

In the first two years of the healthcare law, more insurers than expected have ended up with balance sheets in the red. As a result, the risk pool now has only about $1 to cover every $10 in claims – an equation that is not likely to improve until the market stabilizes. 

“We estimate that that the 2015 ACA risk corridor will be significantly underfunded, as was the case the previous year,” Standard and Poor’s analyst Deep Banerjee predicted in a report Thursday. 

Banerjee said external funding would likely be needed to add to the funds in 2016, a move that would likely have to be made by Congress. 

Federal health officials had expected a rough few years after new rules that said insurers couldn’t reject customers with pre-existing conditions – adding more risk to the marketplace. 

But the risk pool has been depleted faster than expected as insurers intentionally lowered costs in the early days of the ObamaCare maketable with hopes of reeling in new customers. 

The situation could improve this year, with more insurers raising their premiums, Banerjee said.

The risk pool was designed for insurance companies to offer artificially low premiums to entice customers to their plans and enabled the Democrats to say these rates are proof Obamcare was a good deal. Of course now the premiums are rising many times faster than inflation so what is left? Skyrocketing premiums and more deficit spending by bailing out Obamacare with tax money as the article concludes. Where will the Democrats find the funds for their fiasco? ( Incidentally, Barack Obama is the president that asked for and signed 'pay as you go' ).

“In our view, it looks like appropriations may be the only way to fully fund the risk corridor deficits,” the analysis warned.\

 Obamacare was designed to fail and was based on LIES.. It was always a Trojan Horse for a single payer government controlled healthcare system The Democratic party's zero information voter base was expertly exploited by Obama's apparatchiks and they relied heavily on the stupidity of the Democratic voter and their representatives to get Obamacare passed, just as they will when they push for single payer 'medicare for all' .



BTW, single payer is a failure, just ask Vermont....



Other blogs on Obamacare

MN Individual Healthcare Premiums Increase Up to 49%

Overhead costs exploding under ObamaCare

Jonathan Gruber Had Larger Role in ObamaCare Than Previously Known

Nation’s 'Elite' Cancer Hospitals Off-Limits Under Obamacare

Overhead costs exploding under ObamaCare

The Obamacare law was passed without transparency, was based on lies and relied on the stupidity of the Democrat voter. The failure of Obama's 'signature' legislation is evident reading many different news items. 

Overhead costs exploding under ObamaCare

Five years after the passage of ObamaCare, there is one expense that’s still causing sticker shock across the healthcare industry: overhead costs. 

The administrative costs for healthcare plans are expected to explode by more than a quarter of a trillion dollars over the next decade, according to a new study published by the Health Affairs blog.   

The $270 billion in new costs, for both private insurance companies and government programs, will be “over and above what would have been expected had the law not been enacted,” one of the authors, David Himmelstein, wrote Wednesday. 

Those costs will be particularly high this year, when overhead is expected to make up 45 percent of all federal spending related to the Affordable Care Act. By 2022, that ratio will decrease to about 20 percent of federal spending related to the law. 

The study is based on data from both the government’s National Health Expenditure Projections and the Congressional Budget Office. Both authors are members of Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates for a single-payer system. 

"This number – 22.5 percent of all new spending going into overheard – is shocking even to me, to be honest. It’s almost one out of every four dollars is just going to bureaucracy," the study's other author, Steffie Woolhandler, said Wednesday...

A breakdown of the costs...... 

The extra administrative costs amount to the equivalent of $1,375 per newly insured person per year, the authors write.

About two-thirds of the new overhead costs are the result of rising enrollment in private plans, which the authors say carries “high costs for administration and profits.” 

The rest is the result of expanded government programs, such as Medicaid. It also includes the cost of running ObamaCare exchanges at both the federal and state levels. 

The federal exchange, as well as the 13 state-run exchanges, have all been boosted by grant money, though those funds will run out by 2016. The exchange will then need to rely on fees to plan premiums.

Next from the Wall Street Journal: 

Health Insurers Seek Hefty Rate Boosts
Proposals set the stage for debate over federal health law’s impact

Major insurers in some states are proposing hefty rate boosts for plans sold under the federal health law, setting the stage for an intense debate this summer over the law’s impact. 

In New Mexico, market leader Health Care Service Corp. is asking for an average jump of 51.6% in premiums for 2016. The biggest insurer in Tennessee, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, has requested an average 36.3% increase. In Maryland, market leader CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield wants to raise rates 30.4% across its products. Moda Health, the largest insurer on the Oregon health exchange, seeks an average boost of around 25%. 

All of them cite high medical costs incurred by people newly enrolled under the Affordable Care Act.....

Next from CNBC

Obamacare's special enrollments draw little interest

Many were called. Few chose to respond.

The federal Obamacare insurance marketplace HealthCare.gov signed up 147,000 people in 36 states during a special tax season enrollment period, officials revealed Tuesday. That relatively light level of sign-ups was similar to what was seen in 11 other states and the District of Columbia during their own grace periods.

HealthCare.gov issued the final tally via Twitter rather than a press release or news call that Obama administration officials have previously used to announce other numbers and results.
The federal exchange's special enrollment period was open to people who learned they were subject to a tax penalty for failing to have health insurance coverage last year when they were preparing their tax returns. 

In all, it appears fewer than 250,000 people signed up nationally. In Hawaii, no people—as in zero—signed up during the special tax season enrollment...

Lastly, from The LaTimes

Amid slower growth, California's Obamacare exchange cuts proposed spending

After using most of $1 billion in federal start-up money, California's Obamacare exchange is preparing to go on a diet.

That financial reality is reflected in Covered California's proposed budget, released Wednesday, as well as a reduced forecast calling for 2016 enrollment of fewer than 1.5 million people.

The recalibration comes after tepid enrollment growth for California during the second year of the Affordable Care Act. The state ended open enrollment in February with 1.4 million people signed up, far short of its goal of 1.7 million.

A number of factors contributed to the shortfall, but health policy experts said that some uninsured folks still find health insurance unaffordable despite the health law's premium subsidies....

Obamacare is not sustainable by any measure and has failed the American people, just like Barack Obama.

Leftists Protest Vermont Scrapping 'Medicare for All' Single-Payer Healthcare

The coalition protests the Governor interrupting plans for a complete takeover of healthcare by the government in their state of Vermont. Single-payer means 'Medicare For All'  First some background on the recent changing of his mind about single payer....

Why single payer died in Vermont

By SARAH WHEATON 
12/20/14 9:30 AM EST

Vermont was supposed to be the beacon for a single-payer health care system in America. But now its plans are in ruins, and its onetime champion Gov. Peter Shumlin may have set back the cause.

Advocates of a “Medicare for all” approach were largely sidelined during the national Obamacare debate. The health law left a private insurance system in place and didn’t even include a weaker “public option” government plan to run alongside more traditional commercial ones.

So single-payer advocates looked instead to make a breakthrough in the states. Bills have been introduced from Hawaii to New York; former Medicare chief Don Berwick made it a key plank of his unsuccessful primary race for Massachusetts governor.

Vermont under Shumlin became the most visible trailblazer. Until Wednesday, when the governor admitted what critics had said all along: He couldn’t pay for it.

“It is not the right time for Vermont” to pass a single-payer system, Shumlin acknowledged in a public statement ending his signature initiative. He concluded the 11.5 percent payroll assessments on businesses and sliding premiums up to 9.5 percent of individuals’ income “might hurt our economy.”


Vermont’s outcome is a “small speed bump,” said New York Assembly member Richard Gottfried, who’s been pushing single-payer bills for more than 20 years. But opponents says it’s the end of the road.

“If cobalt blue Vermont couldn’t find a way to make single-payer happen, then it’s very unlikely that any other state will,” said Jack Mozloom, spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business.

“There will never be a good time for a massive tax increase on employers and consumers in Vermont, so they should abandon that silly idea now and get serious,” Mozloom added.

Single Payer Healthcare Protesters target the Gov. of Vermont

The sense of betrayal from single-payers’ most passionate advocates after Shumlin’s announcement was palpable, particularly as he had tied his own political persona to the idea. “It is time to put the interests of patients first, ahead of political expedience,” said Andrew Coates, president of Physicians for a National Health Care Program. Single-payer is “the only reform that will cover everyone, save lives and save money. Mr. Shumlin, of all our nation’s governors, knows this well.”

: Read More at Politico 

Betrayal is a form of Grubered. The coalition of leftist activists protest the inauguration of the new Governor. The following video shows the usual tactics of the left. Occupation,and obstruction are methods promoted by the SEIU, the chants are because leftism is a cult.


Obamacare was based on deception and lies.


And your STUPIDITY and your......




Gruber wasn't really involved with Obamacare?


Obama knew the whole time that MILLIONS would lose their healthcare because of Obamacare.




Then again, Obamacare is just a means to and end, single payer... by any means necessary.