One of the many indications of the failure of President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement – the (UN)Affordable Care Act – is the fact that only one third of original state agencies launched to implement the act are still in operation. In fact, out of the 23 co-ops created under Obamacare, only eight still exist.
Earlier this month, two co-ops announced they would close shop in the course of one week.
On July 5th, Connecticut’s agency, HealthyCT, was placed under an immediate order of supervision “after being forced to pay $13.4 million for the Affordable Care Act’s risk adjustment program.”
Just three days later the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services said it would place Oregon’s Health Co-Op in receivership and begin to “liquidate the company’s assets.” According to reports, Oregon’s co-op “lost $18.4 million in 2015 due to medical claims and individual policies and owes $900,000 to pay for Obamacare’s risk adjustment program.”
The failure of Oregon’s co-op marks the second time that state has failed to launch an Obamacare agency.
Connecticut and Oregon joins a long list of failed efforts, including Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and the co-op that served both Iowa and Nebraska.
The failures have not come as a surprise to experts who analyzed the fiscal realities of the (UN)Affordable Care Act. The Washington Free Beacon:
A professor who specializes in economics and health insurance predicted this would happen, telling lawmakers in March that it was likely the remaining co-ops would close. At that time, there were 11 co-ops still in operation.
“The future of the 11 co-ops still providing coverage in 2016 is uncertain, but future closures seem likely,” Dr. Scott Harrington, a professor at the Wharton School, told lawmakers at a Senate hearing.
Harrington also said, “Very little, if any, of the $1.24 billion in federal start-up and solvency loans to establish those co-ops will be repaid, and at least several will be unable to meet all of their obligations to policyholders and health care providers.”
President Obama’s signature health care act has only served to make insurance less affordable — at the taxpayers’ expense. What a victory!
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