Obamacare co-ops close after Congress tells Obama to stop writing blank checks for bad business

Republicans unfairly blamed for closures.

The New York Times recently blamed Republicans for the collapse of several Obamacare co-ops, but the Times article also missed some important facts, according to Breitbart.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The New York Times addressed the issue of Obamacare co-ops, which were intended to be low-cost, non-profit alternatives to public option plans. The public option was allegedly opposed by Republicans and replaced with a plan to create non-profit co-ops instead.

However, Breitbart pointed out that it was Joe Liberman, the Independent senator who often caucuses with Democrats, that threatened to block any bill that contained a public option. With that threat in place, the only alternatives were healthcare co-ops.

Today, co-ops in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, Nevada and Oregon have all closed. The Times blames Republican opposition for the closures, saying that "Their problems have been attributed to wrong estimates for how many people might enroll and to setting premiums too low to cover the cost of care, as well as severe reductions in the amount of money available to the co-ops from federal loans and for risk adjustment payments, both the result of Republican opposition to supporting the plans."

But Breitbart pointed out that it was poor business practices, more than anything, that forced the co-ops out of the market. Premiums were set much too low, in many cases by nearly half. The Obama administration obviously opposes premium increases, because premium increases would drive opposition to Obamacare.

Other issues concern a stealthy bailout program in which the Obama administration would shuttle money behind the scenes to insurers who were losing money and cooperated by keeping premium rates low. The Obama administration has relied on the individual mandate to force people into the market to pay their share of the burden and alleviate some of the pressure on the federal government. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened. More importantly, the premiums remain too low to cover costs and the federal government is limited in its bailout ability.

The end result is the closure of the co-ops.

There are only two things that could have saved the co-ops. The first would be to allow premiums to be set by the market, which is what the Republicans would prefer. The second option would be to send unlimited government money to the co-ops to subsidize their high costs and poor business practices.

In the end, the free market always wins. The coops have closed and the people must now find more sustainable insurance programs. Their premiums might be higher and the care might be less than gold-standard, but at least they have a better chances of getting stable, reliable coverage that won't bankrupt their fellow taxpayers.

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