Swordsmyth
02-17-2018, 03:54 PM
Despite President Donald Trump’s previously stated opposition to ObamaCare’s insurance-company bailouts, the federal budget (https://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary/item/28266-trumps-budget-wont-be-balanced-just-restrained) he recently proposed actually reinstates these supposedly temporary bailouts and even asks for them to become a permanent entitlement.
Trump proposes spending $11.5 billion to pay back claims under the healthcare law’s risk-corridor program, whereby insurers who suffer losses on the exchanges are bailed out by those who reap “excess” profits on them. The program was supposed to be self-sufficient, but “the losses thus far have exceeded the gains, and the program ran an $11.5 billion shortfall through 2016, when the law required the program to ‘sunset,’” wrote the Daily Signal (http://dailysignal.com/2018/02/13/new-white-house-budget-bail-obamacare).
“To make matters worse,” reported the website, “the proposal both asks for an [$800 million] appropriation and proposes to put the program in the mandatory baseline — indicating that insurers are to be the beneficiaries of federal funding as a form of entitlement.” On top of that, Trump wants to exempt the program from budget sequestration, so it can grow even as other programs are forced to tighten their belts.
The risk-corridor program has never been funded by Congress. In fact, lawmakers passed bills explicitly forbidding its funding, and President Barack Obama signed them.
More at: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/28289-trumps-budget-proposal-reinstates-obamacare-bailouts
Trump proposes spending $11.5 billion to pay back claims under the healthcare law’s risk-corridor program, whereby insurers who suffer losses on the exchanges are bailed out by those who reap “excess” profits on them. The program was supposed to be self-sufficient, but “the losses thus far have exceeded the gains, and the program ran an $11.5 billion shortfall through 2016, when the law required the program to ‘sunset,’” wrote the Daily Signal (http://dailysignal.com/2018/02/13/new-white-house-budget-bail-obamacare).
“To make matters worse,” reported the website, “the proposal both asks for an [$800 million] appropriation and proposes to put the program in the mandatory baseline — indicating that insurers are to be the beneficiaries of federal funding as a form of entitlement.” On top of that, Trump wants to exempt the program from budget sequestration, so it can grow even as other programs are forced to tighten their belts.
The risk-corridor program has never been funded by Congress. In fact, lawmakers passed bills explicitly forbidding its funding, and President Barack Obama signed them.
More at: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/28289-trumps-budget-proposal-reinstates-obamacare-bailouts