‘The dozen failed ObamaCare cooperatives have not repaid any of the $1.2 billion in federal loans they received and still owe more than $1 billion in additional liabilities, according to recent financial statements cited Thursday at a congressional hearing.
“We shouldn’t hold our breath on repayment,” Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said in his opening statement at the hearing.
“In some states, these losses will be absorbed by other insurance companies—which means, by the policyholders of other insurance companies who have to pay increased … premiums,” he said. “In other states, doctors, hospitals and individual patients stand to suffer large out-of-pocket losses due to the co-op failures—as our report details.”
Portman’s statement, first obtained by Fox News, refers to an investigation by the committee’s majority staff.
It claims the most recent balance sheets provided to the subcommittee show the failed cooperatives owe more than $700 million to doctors and hospitals for plan year 2015.
The failed cooperatives lost $376 million and exceeded the projected worst-case-scenario losses outlined in their loan applications by more than $260 million in 2014. They lost an additional billion dollars in 2015, according to the report.
“Once the co-ops got going in 2014, things went south in a hurry—both in terms of financial losses and enrollment figures that wildly deviated from the co-ops’ own projections,” Portman said. “Despite getting regular reports that the co-ops were hemorrhaging cash, HHS [the Department of Health and Human Services] took essentially no corrective action for over a year.”’ - Failed ObamaCare co-ops have not repaid $1.2B in federal loans, docs say, foxnews.com, 03/10/2016
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/03/10/failed-obamacare-co-ops-have-not-repaid-1-2b-in-federal-loans-docs-say.html
'A South Carolina health insurer has become the ninth insurance cooperative formed nationwide under the Affordable Care Act to fold.
Consumers' Choice Health Insurance Co. said Thursday that it will not sell policies in 2016, a decision that will leave 67,000 individuals and business customers looking for new coverage.
Ray Farmer, director of the South Carolina Department of Insurance, said Consumers' Choice and state regulators reached a mutual decision to shut down the company's business. He said the company was in a "financially hazardous condition."
"I did not have the confidence that this company would be a viable entity throughout the entire year of 2016," Farmer said.”' - Ninth cooperative formed under Affordable Care Act closing, AP, 10/22/2015
Link to the entire article appears below:
http://news.yahoo.com/ninth-cooperative-formed-under-affordable-care-act-closing-214059601.html
“Oregon has received the Obama administration’s approval for a 30-day extension of its Obamacare exchange’s open enrollment period, officials announced Wednesday.
State officials had requested the federal government’s approval for the extension, which has come the day after news broke that the Obama administration will be extending its own deadline for exchange enrollment for anyone who claims they began their application prior to March 31.
Oregon’s exchange, however, qualifies for an even wider extension because its marketplace has experienced possible the worst technological problems of any state. With five days left before open enrollment was supposed to close, Oregon still has no website available for individuals to enroll in health insurance online.”
“The state’s embattled exchange crashed in October and officials are still unable to get it back up and running. Officials shifted the marketplace’s focus to paper applications in November and have since been able to sign up 52,000 for private health plans, but online enrollment still isn’t possible.
A recent private investigation into how Oregon’s exchange was so severely mismanaged discovered massive internal conflict which prevented the exchange from being effectively built, including “ineffective” and “at times contentious” communications between agencies.
So far, the top tech official in charge of creating the website and two successive directors of the exchange have all been forced to resign. The website’s primary contractor, Oracle, has not yet been fired, but Cover Oregon is withholding $25.6 million of contract and has reserved the right to sue the company over payments already issued.
After requests from federal Oregon lawmakers, the General Accountability Office will audit Cover Oregon’s website operations. The exchange spent over $300 million on the website and received several early innovator grants as one of Obamacare’s first supporters.” - Oregon Obamacare exchange gets month-long enrollment delay, daily caller.com, 03/26/2014
Link to entire article appears below:
http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/26/oregon-obamacare-exchange-gets-month-long-enrollment-delay/
