Obama’s Latest Bailout For Big Insurance Aims To Cover His Lies

It never rains that it doesn’t pour. Even as nonpartisan experts at the Government Accountability Office concluded that the Obama administration broke the law with Obamacare’s reinsurance program, the Washington Post reported the administration could within weeks pay out a massive settlement to insurers through another Obamacare slush fund—this one, risk corridors.
The Post article quoted Republicans criticizing risk corridor “bailouts.” But in reality, the Obama administration itself has admitted using risk corridors as a bailout mechanism—trying to pay insurers to offset the costs of unilateral policy changes made to get President Obama out of a political jam. These two interlinked bailouts—one political, the other financial—explain this administration’s rush to pay off insurers on its way out the door.

Let’s Go Back to 2013

To understand the risk corridor story, one must head back to fall 2013. Millions of Americans received cancellation notices in the mail, informing them that their existing health insurance would disappear once Obamacare’s major provisions took effect. Those individuals also faced long odds to buy replacement policies, given that healthcare.gov and related insurance exchanges remained in a near-constant state of meltdown. Amid the controversy, President Obama had to apologize publicly for misleading the American people with his “like your plan” pledge—which Politifact later dubbed the “Lie of the Year.”

http://thefederalist.com/2016/10/03/obamas-latest-bailout-big-insurance-aims-cover-lies/