candycorn
Diamond Member
Obamacare s Illegal Insurance Company Bailout - Conn CarrollSorry but you're simply wrong.
From the above web site:
========================
"Reinsurance: Obamacare’s reinsurance program is paid for by a $63 tax on all health plans. The money then goes to any health insurance company who spends more than $60,000 on any Obamacare patient in any single year. Since the tax applies to all health care plans, but the benefits only go to Obamacare plans, the reinsurance program is really just a transfer of wealth from those who had insurance coverage before Obamacare to those who are now covered by Obamacare.
Risk Adjustment: The risk adjustment program is designed to stop insurance companies from marketing or pricing their plans in such a way that they only attract healthy, and therefore lower-cost, patients. The program accomplishes this by assessing the patient population of each insurer and then determining which insurers are covering healthier people and which are covering sicker people. The plans covering the healthy people are then forced to pay money to the plans covering sicker people. All transfers between insurance companies even out.
Risk Corridors: The risk corridor program is intended to encourage insurers to price their premiums low by protecting them from losses if their patients turn out to require more care than anticipated. The program uses a complex formula to take money from those insurers that do not spend a lot of money paying for patient health care, and then gives that money to other insurers that do spend a lot of money on patient care.
The big difference between the three programs is that the reinsurance and risk adjustment programs either have a dedicated stream of income (the $63 tax on all health care plans) or the payouts are limited to what the program takes in (all transfers equal out in the risk adjustment program).
But the risk corridor program has no guaranteed stream of funding. What if more health insurance plans underprice their Obamacare plans in an effort to gain market share? What if they all end up spending more on health care than they originally planned?
Then everyone would be demanding payment from the system but no one would be paying in. Who would make up the difference in such a situation?
When the CBO originally scored Obamacare, they assumed the Three Rs would end up costing taxpayers nothing. And then, when they rescored the bill again in February 2014, they optimistically estimated that the risk corridor program would actually save taxpayers $8 billion over the next 10 years.
But CBO’s computer models rarely, if ever, come close to matching reality. And Obamacare has been no different.
...
Obamacare Bailout to the Rescue
Health insurance CEOs immediately demanded a meeting with Obama, which happened in the White House the day after his Friday announcement. According to health insurance lobbyist emails obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Obama agreed that day to increase payments for both the risk corridor and reinsurance programs.
But some savvy Republicans on Capitol Hill were watching this drama and began to push back. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) even introduced a bill just four days after Obama’s November 15th rule change that would have repealed the risk corridor program entirely. “Washington’s bailout culture must end, and eliminating ObamaCare’s blank check for a bailout of insurance companies is a common sense step to protect taxpayers when ObamaCare fails,” Rubio said in a statement.
Not wanting a fight with Republicans over insurance company bailouts, the first draft of HHS’s regulation governing the risk corridor program, published in March 2014, promised that the program would be implemented in “a budget neutral manner.” In other words, payments out of the program would not be greater than payments into the program. There would be no bailout.
The health insurance industry promptly freaked out. According to emails obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Blue Cross/Blue Shield CEO Chet Burrell sent Obama Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett a memo threatening health insurance premium spikes of “as much as 20 percent” if the risk corridor program was run in a “budget neutral” manner.
Obama got the message. The final HHS regulation published in May 2014 said that, “In the unlikely event of a shortfall for the 2015 program year ... HHS will use other sources of funding for the risk corridor payments.”
In other words, the risk corridor bailout is on.
And according to a survey of Obamacare insurers conducted by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Obama administration is expected to make $725 million in net payments out of the risk corridor program in 2015 alone. Throw in the increased reinsurance payments and the bailout will top $1 billion."
...
The original Obamacare legislation did not contain any appropriations to build the federal health insurance exchange either. So Obama simply stole $454 million from the law’s “Prevention Fund” program and used it to build the exchanges instead.
========================
As I said... Everyone on Obamacare is receiving welfare. The checks are not going to them directly... instead the checks are going from the government (taxpayer funds) to insurance companies and to government employees who are managing Obama care. Hell just look at the people we added to the IRS to run this beast. All tax payer funded... all of it.
Much in the same way that whenever you drive on a road, someone else paid taxes for you to drive on it so, by you definition, all drivers are on welfare....right?
Not sure how that works. You pay for a portion of the road every time you gas up. The only people getting a free ride are those in solar powered vehicles, on bikes, or free public transportation.
So, I don't think this argument holds water.
What I find strange is that you made the statement that Obamacare is not a product. So what is RKMBrown making reference to ?
I noticed RKMBrown used the term "massive" when describing the amount of tax payer money in a particular premium. What is "massive" ?
Sure it holds water...in no way has anyone paid, in taxes, for the roads outside of their houses....not the original costs, not the upkeep, not the lights....nobody.
Obamacare s Illegal Insurance Company Bailout - Conn CarrollSorry but you're simply wrong.
From the above web site:
========================
"Reinsurance: Obamacare’s reinsurance program is paid for by a $63 tax on all health plans. The money then goes to any health insurance company who spends more than $60,000 on any Obamacare patient in any single year. Since the tax applies to all health care plans, but the benefits only go to Obamacare plans, the reinsurance program is really just a transfer of wealth from those who had insurance coverage before Obamacare to those who are now covered by Obamacare.
Risk Adjustment: The risk adjustment program is designed to stop insurance companies from marketing or pricing their plans in such a way that they only attract healthy, and therefore lower-cost, patients. The program accomplishes this by assessing the patient population of each insurer and then determining which insurers are covering healthier people and which are covering sicker people. The plans covering the healthy people are then forced to pay money to the plans covering sicker people. All transfers between insurance companies even out.
Risk Corridors: The risk corridor program is intended to encourage insurers to price their premiums low by protecting them from losses if their patients turn out to require more care than anticipated. The program uses a complex formula to take money from those insurers that do not spend a lot of money paying for patient health care, and then gives that money to other insurers that do spend a lot of money on patient care.
The big difference between the three programs is that the reinsurance and risk adjustment programs either have a dedicated stream of income (the $63 tax on all health care plans) or the payouts are limited to what the program takes in (all transfers equal out in the risk adjustment program).
But the risk corridor program has no guaranteed stream of funding. What if more health insurance plans underprice their Obamacare plans in an effort to gain market share? What if they all end up spending more on health care than they originally planned?
Then everyone would be demanding payment from the system but no one would be paying in. Who would make up the difference in such a situation?
When the CBO originally scored Obamacare, they assumed the Three Rs would end up costing taxpayers nothing. And then, when they rescored the bill again in February 2014, they optimistically estimated that the risk corridor program would actually save taxpayers $8 billion over the next 10 years.
But CBO’s computer models rarely, if ever, come close to matching reality. And Obamacare has been no different.
...
Obamacare Bailout to the Rescue
Health insurance CEOs immediately demanded a meeting with Obama, which happened in the White House the day after his Friday announcement. According to health insurance lobbyist emails obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Obama agreed that day to increase payments for both the risk corridor and reinsurance programs.
But some savvy Republicans on Capitol Hill were watching this drama and began to push back. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) even introduced a bill just four days after Obama’s November 15th rule change that would have repealed the risk corridor program entirely. “Washington’s bailout culture must end, and eliminating ObamaCare’s blank check for a bailout of insurance companies is a common sense step to protect taxpayers when ObamaCare fails,” Rubio said in a statement.
Not wanting a fight with Republicans over insurance company bailouts, the first draft of HHS’s regulation governing the risk corridor program, published in March 2014, promised that the program would be implemented in “a budget neutral manner.” In other words, payments out of the program would not be greater than payments into the program. There would be no bailout.
The health insurance industry promptly freaked out. According to emails obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Blue Cross/Blue Shield CEO Chet Burrell sent Obama Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett a memo threatening health insurance premium spikes of “as much as 20 percent” if the risk corridor program was run in a “budget neutral” manner.
Obama got the message. The final HHS regulation published in May 2014 said that, “In the unlikely event of a shortfall for the 2015 program year ... HHS will use other sources of funding for the risk corridor payments.”
In other words, the risk corridor bailout is on.
And according to a survey of Obamacare insurers conducted by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Obama administration is expected to make $725 million in net payments out of the risk corridor program in 2015 alone. Throw in the increased reinsurance payments and the bailout will top $1 billion."
...
The original Obamacare legislation did not contain any appropriations to build the federal health insurance exchange either. So Obama simply stole $454 million from the law’s “Prevention Fund” program and used it to build the exchanges instead.
========================
As I said... Everyone on Obamacare is receiving welfare. The checks are not going to them directly... instead the checks are going from the government (taxpayer funds) to insurance companies and to government employees who are managing Obama care. Hell just look at the people we added to the IRS to run this beast. All tax payer funded... all of it.
Much in the same way that whenever you drive on a road, someone else paid taxes for you to drive on it so, by you definition, all drivers are on welfare....right?
Not sure how that works. You pay for a portion of the road every time you gas up. The only people getting a free ride are those in solar powered vehicles, on bikes, or free public transportation.
So, I don't think this argument holds water.
What I find strange is that you made the statement that Obamacare is not a product. So what is RKMBrown making reference to ?
I noticed RKMBrown used the term "massive" when describing the amount of tax payer money in a particular premium. What is "massive" ?
Sure it holds water...in no way has anyone paid, in taxes, for the roads outside of their houses....not the original costs, not the upkeep, not the lights....nobody.
I would contend that they have to pay for more than that.
But if you buy 1,800 in gas a year, you pay about $400 in taxes. That would be more than enough to cover the asphault and lighting outside your house over a number of years.
Except few (if any) work across the street; they use local streets, service roads, on-ramps, freeways which require maintenance, stoplights, stop signs which all require upkeep.
