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Eleven more Obamacare co-ops face bankruptcy

Finding out what’s in it: Eleven more Obamacare state health insurance co-ops are on the verge of bankruptcy, according to an assessment that the Obama administration is keeping secret.

The key to this story is this quote:

Just in the last three weeks, five of the original 24 Obamacare co-ops announced plans to close, bringing the total of failures to nine barely two years after their launch with $2 billion in start-up capital from the taxpayers under the Affordable Care Act. All 24 received 15-year loans in varying amounts to offer health insurance to poor and low income customers and provide publicly funded competition to private, for-profit insurers. Among the co-ops to announce closings were those in Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky, West Virginia, Louisiana, Nevada, Tennessee, Vermont, New York and Colorado.

Nearly half a million failing co-op customers will have to find new coverage in 2016. More than $900 million of the original $2 billion in loans has been lost. [emphasis mine]

In other words, this part of Obamacare was really nothing more than a way to funnel a lot of cash to Democratic activists and supporters. That the co-ops are going bankrupt really doesn’t matter, because the money will remain in those Democratic hands regardless.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • Edward

    Robert wrote: “That the co-ops are going bankrupt really doesn’t matter, because the money will remain in those Democratic hands regardless.”

    Well, maybe it does not matter to the Democrats, because they get what they want.

    I have noticed, over the years, that most scams (such as Obamacare and these loans) cost the victims far more than the scammer ultimately receives. Usually, this is due to bribes and expenses in setting up and executing a scam, but in the case of Obamacare (and global warming), money is funneled to many places and many people who provide little or no productivity.

    As an example, Obamacare requires that at least 16,000 IRS employees be hired in order to make sure that the tax portion of the law is carried out. None of these new employees provides any health care and are merely a drain on the healthcare system Since their expenses (salary, overhead, benefits, etc.) come out of a different budget, no one will be able accurately account for this added expense to society. (It is hard to say how many people are hired by employers to ensure compliance with this behemoth law — more people who are expensive, provide no medical care, and whose ultimate costs cannot be measured.) This is money squandered on non-productive activity — a heavy cost of Obamacare.

    In the case of the failing insurance co-ops, we can see the $2 billion being squandered, but we cannot be sure of other squandered expenses (e.g. political donations).

    This is what we get when we put government in charge of an important part of the economy: incomprehensible rules (we are *still* finding out what is in it) and non-economical results. At least the ‘care’ part of American healthcare has not yet gone the way of Canadian care,* British care, or the rest of European care.

    * Canada’s healthcare system has devolved so much that the government has stopped enforcing the law against private medical practices. Thus, even under socialized medicine, the wealthy get the better (read: “more prompt” or “higher quality”) medical care and the serfs get the ‘regular’ (read: “delayed” or “rationed”) medical care.

  • Cotour

    Obamacare, working exactly as per design.

    You have to admit, it is brilliant. A brilliant plan executed by the democrats when they could get it through, and Un-Constitutionally re-supported by a “conservative” Chief Justice who contorted himself, for only reasons that he knows.

    Does everyone understand that if an actual American, Constitutionally minded Conservative leader does not win the next presidential election that the country called America will only be America in name only? Why? Because that next president will certainly appoint at least one maybe two, maybe more, who knows, new Supreme Court Justices.

    And we have seen the damage that one supposed Conservative individual can do in only a short time. What kind of damage would two or three more do? And I want to point out that this flavor of incremental tyranny is really the accomplishment of both party’s, really beginning with the George H.W. Bush administration and ALL administrations following, party affiliation not relevant . Let us not be naive, We The American People have been captured.

  • D.K. Williams

    I just paid the Obamacare tax for a friend in desperate financial straights. She can’t afford to buy coverage, and because she is temporarily unable to work, gets fined for her poverty. What kind of demented mind dreamed up this monstrosity?

  • Cotour

    What kind of demented mind? Who?

    http://www.zazzle.com/three_stooges_parody_obama_pelosi_reid_magnet-147627819350337597

    We had better all be hopeful that massive numbers of actual Americans come out and thoroughly reject these demented minds in the coming presidential elections.

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