Reply With QuoteNothing from this clown surprises me anymore.
Six Solyndras: Obamacare Blows $3 Billion on Faulty CO-OP Insurance Loans (Op-Ed)
Six Solyndras: Obamacare Blows $3 Billion on Faulty CO-OP Insurance Loans (Op-Ed)
by Avik Roy
A lot of people have been justly offended by the Solyndra scandal, in which the Obama administration squandered $535 million in a failed solar-energy company backed by one of Obama’s largest donors. But $535 mill in failed loans is chump change for this administration. Obamacare, according to the White House, will waste over $3 billion on faulty loans to state-sponsored health insurers called CO-OPs. It’s bad enough that taxpayer funds are going down the tubes. But internal documents show that the administration isn’t particularly bothered by it.
First, some of the backstory. When moderate Democrats balked at the government-run “public option” in their health-care bill, they compromised by creating state-sponsored insurers called Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, or CO-OPs. These CO-OPs, however, are not to be confused with private co-ops, which are privately sponsored cooperative enterprises. The Obamacare CO-OPs were designed to fail.
The Obamacare CO-OPs were allocated $6 billion in subsidized, cut-rate loans, so as to ensure that they would meet state capital requirements. (Insurers have to have a certain amount of money in reserve in order to pay out the claims of their beneficiaries.) Interest on the loans would be a point or two less than Treasurys—a nice deal, if you can get it. But the bigger problem, as Bradford Gray of the Urban Institute explained last summer, is that the CO-OPs aren’t built to function like normal insurers.
Structural flaws in the design of CO-OPs
For one thing, the plans are prohibited from marketing. So there isn’t an obvious way for the plans to make consumers aware of them. The plans are prohibited from working with insurers already in operation, hence limiting their ability to gain from the experience of existing market players. The plans will have to enroll members and contract with providers—but unless they are able to enroll a good mix of healthy and sick people, they’ll pay out more in claims than they take in premiums: the classic problem of adverse selection. Since healthy people have plenty of options already, it’s sick people who will be most likely to sign up for the CO-OP plans.
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Nothing from this clown surprises me anymore.
You hear that? No those aren't crickets, it's just the Liberal Left.
It won't be for a bit, but history will peg this guy for what he is, a complete moron.
Given out to unions and a 91% projected failure rate. wowOriginally Posted by C.Puffs
I need a hand out Obama. Just a million for my start up investment. 99% projected failure but who's counting.
I figured out how to generate power from rainbows. For a mere $2 billion investment I think I can make it work. It's for the children.I need a hand out Obama. Just a million for my start up investment. 99% projected failure but who's counting.
The funniest part is you could probably pick a random person off the street, offer them a million, and they'd have a more successful buisness
Fixed.....
When Lehman Brothers failed in 2008, I was talking to a bunch of people. At the time we were headed in a steep angle downward. I suggested they give every tax filer between $20,000 - $50,000, depending on how much in taxes they have paid, but at a minimum every tax filer would get $20,000. The total cost would have been between $3 to $4 trillion. It could have been done through a tax holiday, so that you don't pay any federal tax until you exhaust the credit. It would have made the economy weather the storm better and wealth would be distributed over a broader segment of the population. It might have been enough in the short run to slow the rate of financial decent.
In hindsight, what was used, Quantitative Easing, did nothing but concentrate wealth and shield the government from its own reckless spending. And tax payers are no better off. In fact, because of the wealth transfer (just over $7 trillion) taxpayers are worse off.
And those on the dole (and the politicians beholden to them) would scream bloody murder because "they didn't get their free money". And the media would be blaring 24/7 about the tragedy of Shaqueefa Crack Ho not gettin' her "fair share". You know it's true.
Read a little further, it would net the taxes you pay. If you don't pay taxes, you get nothing.
Yes, I know. I'm saying that the perception would have been "free money" (at least it would have played that way because people like to stir $hit, and the pols like to look like they're looking out for "the common man").
In times like this, they become the same thing
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