Pamela Weldin's story is just one anecdote of what could be a tsunami of such results in the coming days and months of Obamacare across America in 2015. Her third and latest Obamacare non-profit health insurance carrier has been taken over by the state insurance agency. 58 year old Pamela Weldin is now forced to once again seek out an Obamacare approved health insurance plan.
I cannot imagine the
magnitude of the emotional frustration, turmoil and personal disruption
to Ms. Weldin's life and medical experiences as she tries to make sense
of who, among her current medical providers, will take Obamacare
insurance and which institutions and specialists in her local area will
also take whatever Obamacare insurance she can obtain.
One
medical specialty group that I see twice a year for a checkup simply
does not accept CaliforniaCare (the state version of Obamacare).
Another provider, my dermatologist, has limited the number of
CaliforniaCare patients he will add to his patient load, because of the
poor reimbursement rates of CaliforniaCare. I don't know if either of
these two medical specialty groups even take MediCal (the California
version of federal Medicaid) since they reimburse at a lower rate than
even most Obamacare or CaliforniaCare insurance plans.
Co-ops are no stranger to the insurance market, and lawmakers hoped the nonprofit insurance companies would help infuse competition and choice into markets where there were limited options.
However, the co-ops created under the law would be slightly different from those already in existence—to help the new insurers get off the ground and meet state reserve requirements, the federal government provided $2 billion in startup and solvency loans.
One Year After Obamacare’s Implementation, Taxpayer-Funded Co-Ops Struggle to Survive
Twenty-three co-ops serving 26 states were ultimately licensed and received federal loans including CoOportunity.
According to the latest quarterly filings, more than 520,000 people enrolled in insurance coverage through the co-ops through September.
An analysis conducted by The Daily Signal earlier this month, though, found that all but one of the co-ops experienced operating losses through September.
It becomes obvious that many of these co-ops will either go
bankrupt, thus seriously jeopardizing Obamacare or taxpayers will, once
again, be on the hook to subsidize these co-ops. That's the story of
liberal programs, which can't stand on their own abilities. Government
must step in and subsidize these failures with taxpayers funds to avoid
collapse.
If a government program, such as
Obamacare, cannot survive on its own financing without a taxpayer
subsidy, it should be abolished. Of course this is political heresy,
since so many other federal programs would have to be canceled with this
concept.