Payments To Insurers Under Affordable Care Act Are Illegal

[dismal]

Busted: GAO Finds Payments To Insurers Under Affordable Care Act Are Illegal

The General Accountability Office, the government’s non-partisan watchdog agency, issued a ruling today holding that the Obama administration’s diversion of billions of dollars from the United States Treasury to insurers selling individual policies on the ACA Exchanges was illegal. The GAO joins the Congressional Research Service, another non-partisan agency, in finding that these payments, which the Obama administration has insisted are lawful, are in fact completely unauthorized and inappropriate.

Illegally gave insurers $Billions. With a B.

I can't wait to see Elizabeth Warren call Obama on the carpet and tell him to resign over this.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Linky?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Good. Set up state run health care agencies and give the billions to them instead.

 

[Rhea]

yup, looks like it's time for universal health care.

 

[ZiprHead]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2016/09/29/busted-gao-finds-payments-to-insurers-under-affordable-care-act-are-illegal/#137db03447db

 

[RavenSky]

Good. Set up state run health care agencies and give the billions to them instead.

yup, looks like it's time for universal health care.

^^^ That and that

 

[dismal]

yup, looks like it's time for universal health care.

huh?

The President illegally spends billions and...it's time for universal healthcare?

That's quite the non-sequitur.

What it's time for is Elizabeth Warren hauling him before congress and demanding his resignation.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

yup, looks like it's time for universal health care.

huh?

The President illegally spends billions and...it's time for universal healthcare?

That's quite the non-sequitur.

What it's time for is Elizabeth Warren hauling him before congress and demanding his resignation.

This is a good point. Obama has gone too far this time and I am going to join with Senator Warren in demanding that step down from the office of the Presidency no later than January 21st of next year.

That will give the American people a little over a month to find a replacement for him (I can't see it taking longer than that) and then having a couple of months for this replacement to transition into the office seamlessly.

 

[dismal]

huh?

The President illegally spends billions and...it's time for universal healthcare?

That's quite the non-sequitur.

What it's time for is Elizabeth Warren hauling him before congress and demanding his resignation.

This is a good point. Obama has gone too far this time and I am going to join with Senator Warren in demanding that step down from the office of the Presidency no later than January 21st of next year.

That will give the American people a little over a month to find a replacement for him (I can't see it taking longer than that) and then having a couple of months for this replacement to transition into the office seamlessly.

Yes, and they can also demand he pays back the billions.

 

[jonatha]

I thought the courts had already come to this conclusion. Why is the GAO involved?

In any event, if the billions are repaid, it won't be coming out of President Obama's pocket. The insurance companies will presumab.y be on the hook.

 

[KeepTalking]

I thought the courts had already come to this conclusion. Why is the GAO involved?

In any event, if the billions are repaid, it won't be coming out of President Obama's pocket. The insurance companies will presumab.y be on the hook.

So it appears that dismal wants to bankrupt the insurance companies. I wonder what we will replace them with?

 

[Playball40]

Or....demand that Aetna, United, Anthem pay back the millions.

This is a good point. Obama has gone too far this time and I am going to join with Senator Warren in demanding that step down from the office of the Presidency no later than January 21st of next year.

That will give the American people a little over a month to find a replacement for him (I can't see it taking longer than that) and then having a couple of months for this replacement to transition into the office seamlessly.

Yes, and they can also demand he pays back the billions.

- - - Updated - - -

And because those payments are stopping, the insurers are pulling out of the exchanges.

 

[dismal]

I thought the courts had already come to this conclusion. Why is the GAO involved?

In any event, if the billions are repaid, it won't be coming out of President Obama's pocket. The insurance companies will presumab.y be on the hook.

It's not much of a punishment for a guy who broke the law to have someone else pay it back.

 

[Elixir]

I thought the courts had already come to this conclusion. Why is the GAO involved?

In any event, if the billions are repaid, it won't be coming out of President Obama's pocket. The insurance companies will presumab.y be on the hook.

So it appears that dismal wants to bankrupt the insurance companies. I wonder what we will replace them with?

Might be time for universal health care?

 

[dismal]

I thought the courts had already come to this conclusion. Why is the GAO involved?

In any event, if the billions are repaid, it won't be coming out of President Obama's pocket. The insurance companies will presumab.y be on the hook.

So it appears that dismal wants to bankrupt the insurance companies. I wonder what we will replace them with?

Any company that can't survive without Obama illegally spending money on it probably shouldn't survive.

 

[KeepTalking]

So it appears that dismal wants to bankrupt the insurance companies. I wonder what we will replace them with?

Any company that can't survive without Obama illegally spending money on it probably shouldn't survive.

I will take that as a vote for Universal Health Care.

 

[dismal]

Any company that can't survive without Obama illegally spending money on it probably shouldn't survive.

I will take that as a vote for Universal Health Care.

I'm not sure the premise that health insurance companies can't survive without Obama illegally spending money on them is accurate.

I think some of those companies were around even before Obama started illegally giving them billions.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I will take that as a vote for Universal Health Care.

I'm not sure the premise that health insurance companies can't survive without Obama illegally spending money on them is accurate.

I think some of those companies were around even before Obama started illegally giving them billions.

All the better we eliminate those leaches on society.

 

[SimpleDon]

Busted: GAO Finds Payments To Insurers Under Affordable Care Act Are Illegal

The General Accountability Office, the government’s non-partisan watchdog agency, issued a ruling today holding that the Obama administration’s diversion of billions of dollars from the United States Treasury to insurers selling individual policies on the ACA Exchanges was illegal. The GAO joins the Congressional Research Service, another non-partisan agency, in finding that these payments, which the Obama administration has insisted are lawful, are in fact completely unauthorized and inappropriate.

Illegally gave insurers $Billions. With a B.

I can't wait to see Elizabeth Warren call Obama on the carpet and tell him to resign over this.

It is not a surprise. The ACA was a proposal originally from the libertarian Heritage Foundation with few changes. It goes without saying that it would be an untenable proposal, libertarians are delusional and don't concern themselves with the real world, only with a fantasy world of self-regulating free markets, invisible hands and benign, even beneficial anarchism.

Why would Obama have to payback the money? It would be the government paying back the government, the Treasury paying back the Treasury. The money that the government illegally paid to the insurers was raised through a tax that the US Supreme Court has already found to be legal.

If the Federal government is no longer able to subsidize the health insurance companies the worse that happens is that they will withdraw from the exchanges. Then the law allows for the community option, which is how the ACA should have been organized in the beginning instead of relying on the proven inefficiency of the private for profit insurance companies.

The community option is the government or non-profit company run, community rate based entity which the private, for profit insurance admitted that they couldn't compete against without the provision in the ACA that outlawed them if more than one private company was in the exchange. And of course, without the government subsidy being paid to the private companies.

It never made any sense to use the private for profit model for health care if you are going to have complete or near universal coverage. The for profit model can only provide lower health insurance costs if they are are allowed to deny coverage to the seriously ill, if they can limit their customers to a healthier portion of the population.

We already have government run health insurance for the largest portion of the seriously ill in the country, Medicare and Medicaid. But even with these being taken out of the population that the private insurers would have to cover, they couldn't provide medical coverage at a low cost. Which is now as it always has been, easily predictable. Unless you are laboring under the same delusions that the libertarians and the other free marketers and market fundamentalists are.

 

[RavenSky]

I can't help but think that President Obama knew exactly what he was doing and was playing the long game. What are the Republicans going to do now? Take insurance away from people? Or allow a public option?