No more blank checks for ObamaCare insurers
The new federal spending bill, dubbed the “CRomnibus,” codifies that the ACA payments to insurers are budget-neutral, as the revenue to fund them will come from fees already assessed on health-insurance plans. This is not the blank check that insurers were hoping for.
The lame-duck Congress just protected federal taxpayers from a blank-check bailout of the same ObamaCare insurers that were complicit in passing the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, commonly known as ObamaCare.
A little-known, but important, portion of the ACA includes provisions to pay insurers for their financial losses in the ObamaCare exchanges. Known as “risk-corridor payments,” health-insurance companies will recoup money they lose in the ObamaCare health-insurance exchanges. The new federal spending bill, dubbed the “CRomnibus,” codifies that the ACA payments to insurers are budget-neutral, as the revenue to fund them will come from fees already assessed on health-insurance plans. This is not the blank check that insurers were hoping for.
With this legislation, federal lawmakers have protected the same Americans who are having their health-insurance policies canceled as a direct result of ObamaCare – and who are being forced to pay more for their coverage – from paying even more for the ACA.
Making the insurance bailout budget neutral is an important step in dismantling the president’s health-insurance overhaul. These lawmakers deserve recognition for taking this action in reversing the expensive and unfair provision that could have put taxpayers on the hook for a blank-check bailout of the insurance industry.