WVOC.com: The LA Times has been as friendly as possible to the Obama administration, but they can't ignore this. Today they broke the story that another massive lie around Obamacare has been told to the Congress and the American people. As you know "If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan" was ranked as the biggest lie of the year by the Washington Post. Well here comes an early contender for this year's award.
The Republicans have been accusing the Obama administration of building into Obamacare an insurance plan for the insurance companies. A bailout if the insurance companies lost money under Obamacare. Their claim was that in the law was something called the temporary risk corridor program. Under that Republicans said the administration had allowed themselves a way to take tax dollars and bailout an insurance company that lost money. But the administration and the Democrats have denied that. Apparently the administration and the Democrats had been telling the truth...and didn't like it.
The LA Times reports that late last week hundreds of pages of new regulations were added to Obamacare. Their reporters went through it and found a few key paragraphs. The change in regulations essentially provides insurers with another backup: If they keep rate increases modest over the next couple of years but lose money, the administration will tap federal funds as needed to cover shortfalls. This could be hundreds of billions of dollars!
This is a classic bait and switch. The middle class will feel like they're getting a break on insurance premiums. As long as they don't look at the governments check book, they'll believe the Affordable Health Care Law is working. It only unravels if they realize they are paying double for their insurance, because the increase is being charged to their account in the form of more debt.
The Republicans are expected to go nuts over this, and the Democrats will point at the scene they are making and say 'look how fanatical those people are'. I would warn Republicans against making a big deal out of this.
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