Some Goods News From The Government Accountability Office

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about the Obama Administration’s plan to bail out insurance companies in case of losses due to ObamaCare (see rightwinggranny.com).

The article reports:

The Department of Health and Human Services cannot legally bail out the insurance industry for excessive losses through President Obama’s health care law unless the U.S. Congress approves language allowing the administration to do so, according to a legal opinion released on Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office.

The ruling could end up provoking a showdown between the White House and Congressional Republicans over Obamacare that has the potential to affect health insurance premiums.

The part of ObamaCare that is impacted by this decision is the “risk corridors” program. This is the program that was set up because ObamaCare chose to ignore the concept of the actuary tables that insurance companies use to determine risk and calculate insurance premiums. Under ObamaCare insurers are required to offer coverage to those with pre-existing conditions and limited in how much they can charge older and sicker patients. Like it or not, insurance is a business. Insurance companies need a reasonable profit margin in order to stay in business. When the government skews the actuary tables and fixes rates, the companies cannot exist without government subsidies. Either the subsidies will be paid or America will quickly morph into government health care (we saw how well that worked with the VA).

The article concludes:

In practice, this ruling may not make much of a difference. There’s no guarantee that Republicans will invite a confrontation with Obama over this, fearing that it would allow Democrats to shift blame to the GOP for any premium spikes that would result. The GAO opinion is not legally binding, and the Obama administration could simply choose to ignore it. It’s also possible that this won’t be an issue at all if — as the administration has insisted — payments collected from the program will be sufficient to cover any insurer losses. But the GAO opinion does provide more fuel to the argument of Republicans such as Sessions and Upton that the ultimate authority for covering any excess insurer losses rests with Congress.

Under Obamacare, the risk corridors program is scheduled to be operational for the 2014 through 2016 calendar years.

Unless we elect a Congress with the guts to stand up against this raiding of taxpayer money to support a plan that will not work, we will continue to see government spending grow out of control and government take more and more control of our lives. Your vote counts in November. Think about who and what you choose to support.