Marco Rubio sabotages the health of every American
It is known that the Republican leadership hates Obamacare because it is a path to medicine that does not allow private corporations to pilfer and bankrupt Americans for the profits that benefit a very few. Marco Rubio, a Republican Presidential candidate slipped in a little something into a bill to further harm Obamacare. If it goes through rates will go up both on the exchange and for all Americans as insurance companies attempt to recoup their cost.
The New York Times reported the following.
WASHINGTON — A little-noticed health care provision that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida slipped into a giant spending law last year has tangled up the Obama administration, sent tremors through health insurance markets and rattled confidence in the durability of President Obama’s signature health law.
So for all the Republican talk about dismantling the Affordable Care Act, one Republican presidential hopeful has actually done something toward achieving that goal.
Mr. Rubio’s efforts against the so-called risk corridor provision of the health law have hardly risen to the forefront of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but his plan limiting how much the government can spend to protect insurance companies against financial losses has shown the effectiveness of quiet legislative sabotage.
The risk corridors were intended to help some insurance companies if they ended up with too many new sick people on their rolls and too little cash from premiums to cover their medical bills in the first three years under the health law. But because of Mr. Rubio’s efforts, the administration says it will pay only 13 percent of what insurance companies were expecting to receive this year. The payments were supposed to help insurers cope with the risks they assumed when they decided to participate in the law’s new insurance marketplaces.
Mr. Rubio’s talking point is bumper-sticker ready. The payments, he says, are “a taxpayer-funded bailout for insurance companies.” But without them, insurers say, many consumers will face higher premiums and may have to scramble for other coverage. Already, some insurers have shut down over the unexpected shortfall.
“Risk corridors have become a political football,” said Dawn H. Bonder, the president and chief executive of Health Republic of Oregon, an insurance co-op that announced in October it would close its doors after learning that it would receive only $995,000 of the $7.9 million it had expected from the government. “We were stable, had a growing membership and could have been successful if we had received those payments. We relied on the payments in pricing our plans, but the government reneged on its promise. I am disgusted.”
Make no mistake, I think health insurance companies are skimmers. However our government decided to keep them in the game because of a brainwashed populace that is yet to understand that no innovation comes from insurance companies. They just pay a bill the government could at a fraction of the cost (3% vs 20%+).
A deal was made and the numbers were based on the deal. Marco Rubio will be directly responsible for large portions of hikes going forward. It is important that the narrative is the true narrative. The hikes are not because of an intrinsic defect to Obamacare. It is because of the sabotage by Marco Rubio and his ilk. They must be held accountable and not allowed to spin their doings as an Obamacare failing.