Taxpayer Dollars Down the Hopper: Obamacare's Own Solyndras

Industrial Policy: Louisiana's Health Cooperative went belly up last week, the second of 23 ObamaCare-created insurance co-ops to fail. With more failures likely, it could cost taxpayers almost six times the Solyndra debacle.

When government-supported solar cell manufacturer Solyndra failed in 2011, it was headline news for weeks — a prime example of the dangers of crony capitalism.

But Solyndra's demise cost taxpayers just $500 million. The ObamaCare co-ops could wind up costing close to $3 billion.

ObamaCare created these nonprofit, "consumer directed" co-ops to provide stiff price competition in the ObamaCare exchanges. And to get them off the ground, the Obama administration handed out $2.6 billion in low-interest loans and startup funding.

Administration officials claimed that the resulting 23 co-ops were carefully selected because they showed a "high probability of financial viability" and an ability to repay those loans.

Did they mean that as a joke?

Late last year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had to pump an additional $355 million in emergency "solvency loans" into several of these co-ops to keep them afloat.

There goes your Tax Dollars

But just months after getting its own $33 million in solvency funds, CoOpportunity Health of Iowa failed — despite signing up far more people than expected. All told, the federal government gave CoOpportunity $178 million in subsidized loans.

Then last Friday, Louisiana's Department of Insurance — citing low enrollment — announced that the Louisiana Health Cooperative would close its doors at the end of the year. The co-op, which received $66.5 million in loans, lost $5.7 million in 2014, according to the state insurance department, and was paying out 13% more in claims that it was taking in from premiums.

The rest of the field isn't looking much healthier.

Read the rest of the story HERE and follow a link to a related story below:

Health care law’s nonprofit insurance co-ops awash in debt: Massachusetts leads nation in cost per member

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