GOP May Use Threat Of Default To Sabotage Obamacare

[DonViejo]

SAHIL KAPUR – JANUARY 24, 2014, 9:50 AM EST

Republicans may seek to tie a debt ceiling increase to legislation that could sabotage Obamacare with higher premiums, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) told reporters.

"There are issues with Obamacare," Ryan said Thursday at a San Antonio event, as quoted by Politico. "A lot of folks don't realize there could be some massive insurance company bailouts in the near future with Obamacare that a lot of taxpayers probably didn’t know about that we don’t want to see happen. That’s one of the issues that's in the realm of possibility. There are a lot of things ... that are being discussed but its just not in our interest to negotiate in the media."

The "insurance company bailout" is a reference to a burgeoning Republican effort to eliminate a stability mechanism in Obamacare -- known as "risk corridors" -- that is aimed at holding down premiums in the first few years of the law's insurance marketplaces. It is financed by insurers who enroll healthier patients and pays out insurers who enroll sicker patients. But it does not have to be deficit neutral if the overall pool of consumers is sicker than projected (as early estimates suggest is so far the case).

Ryan's comments come on the heels of indications by Speaker John Boehner's
(R-OH) office and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) that Republicans won't agree to raise the debt limit -- the congressionally mandated limit on how much debt the federal government can incur -- without policy add-ons. The House budget chief provided the first indication of what Republicans might conceivably ask for in exchange for a debt limit increase.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/paul-ryan-debt-limit-obamacare-insurer-bailout

[louis-t]

1. "Prices are skyrocketing!1!!1"

As repugs try to make prices skyrocket. Have I told you how much I hate these people?

[kairos12]

2. I am beyond hatred. Rage is more like it. They are beneath contempt.

[JSDude1]

3. What do you think of the Corporate welfare that is in the ACA?

It is obviously a gift to Big Insurance that the President and Pelosi/Reid wrote into this law a provision to continually bail out large insurers if they cannot profit. What are your thoughts?

[Herself]

4. the ACA is desperately in need of amendments, just like Soc Sec & medicare got

There was bipartisan efforts to fix issues with those programs, because it was respected as the law of the land.

B4 ACA PPA- Those that had no insurance were invisible to those that did have insurance. Every day they lived with devastating illness, disability, and some died needlessly. It was painless to those that had insurance, unless it happened to your family, friend, neighbor.

After ACA PPA - Those that had insurance and had not experienced their carrier denying expensive health care needs or treatment provided after that fact liked their insurance. They believed they were "covered". Some of us experienced at least one major screwing before we learned the truth. Some went bankrupt, had judgements on their property because they didn't have the money to get a lawyer and take on their insurance table full of high powered, well connected lawyers.

Others had their insurance cancelled by carriers, because they refused to follow the law and provide what they claimed they did, legitamately.

Others had their carriers jack up the costs.

Those that were invisible became visible
Those that had invisible coverage just traded places with those they could not see before.

Instead of fighting each other, fight the criminals that are creating all of this.

novel idea? work together.

[sakabatou]

5. Not again...

They're gonna pull this shit every quarter, aren't they?

[Chan790]

6. Until we start putting their sacred cows on the chopping block in retaliation...

but we won't put their sacred cows on the chopping block in retaliation, either because the corporatist wing of the Democratic party likes those conservative sacred cows too or because doing so might be interpreted as not being weak-willed and timid.

Fuck them right back! They want to mess with the ACA...take a hatchet to USDoD spending; lean on them to raise taxes on the wealthy; and put the threat of Taft-Hartley and Gramm-Leach-Bliley repeal and Glass-Steagall reinstatement on on the table. Make them feel the pain of not rolling over and going belly-up to accept that Obamacare is here to stay forever and the future is nationalized healthcare for all.