Healthcare premiums due to Obamacare are about to rise on every health care plan due to a bailout plan that is planned through a new tax levied on the insurance companies that will be passed on by increasing the premiums paid by consumers, whether consumers have Obamacare or not, to offset the costs and potential failures of insurance companies.
Forbes contributor, Dr. Scott Gottlieb said on Friday that it was not clear where the money to pay for these “risk adjustments” would come from in the first place.
“One scheme had the Obama Administration using money that it clawed away from profitable health plans to offset the losses incurred by the less fortunate insurers,” Gottlieb said. This, at least, was the way the so-called “risk corridors” were supposed to work, according to the original legislation. Problem is, it’s not clear that there will be enough health plans this year, or any at all, with excess profits that could be used to offset the losses incurred by insurers who were less fortunate.”
Gottlieb pointed to a hearing in which Mandy Cohen, the Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Service’s Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight delivered that message on Wednesday. Cohen’s discussion on the user fees starts at 19:40 and runs eight minutes.
House Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Job Creation and Regulatory Affairs, Chairman, Mr. Jordan asked Cohen, “Do you think if fact that it does cost… do you think you have the authority to cover those costs to make those payments?”
“So I’m not the lawyer but my understanding is that our authority to make those payments comes from our ability to levy user fees. So I do believe that authority,” said Cohen.
Warnings of the legality of health law’s risk corridor payments memo was released back in February 2014 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that raised serious questions about the ability of the Obama administration to pay insurers through the health care law’s risk corridor program.
