On the recordSeptember 27, 2016
The news about the Affordable Care Act gets worse every day. Premiums are going through the roof, choice and access are falling through the floor, and insurers are fleeing exchanges throughout the country. Just in the past few days, we learned that one of the nation's largest insurers is pulling out of Nebraska and three major cities in Tennessee. On top of this, all but six of the 23 CO-OPs created under the law have failed despite billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded loans. These CO-OPs were created by the Affordable Care Act as federally- backed, non-profit health insurance companies. But, like so many parts of the law, the CO-OP program was deeply flawed from the start. Seventeen of these CO-OPs have collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have had their health coverage disrupted as a result. Many more could suffer the same harm if additional CO-OPs fail--a real possibility considering that just two weeks ago New Jersey's CO-OP announced it will shut down at the end of the year. The magnitude of these failures can be hard to grasp--especially for Washington bureaucrats who simply see these families as numbers on paper. For American families who lost their insurance coverage due to a CO- OP collapse, the impacts could not be more real. And, for many, it could feel like the walls are closing in. Their health plans have been terminated through no fault of their own.…
