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Largest health insurer on Colorado's Obamacare exchange collapses

Pollycy

Pollycy

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State of Colorado, USA
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Libertarian - Right
Obamacare is slowly but surely coming into focus as being one of the biggest boondoggles and disasters for working American taxpayers in our history. Here's the sad story here in my home state of Colorado, and there's links to many others: Largest health insurer on Colorado exchange collapses

Colorado is only the latest where this has happened, joining seven other states where Obamacare has turned out to be a bankrupt fraud.

Hey, Obama-lovers, remember when your "messiah" said you'd save $2,500 every year with his marvelous 'socialized-medicine' scheme? Remember how you were gulled into thinking that you'd like it because, after all, the government was going to give you WELFARE -- oops -- I mean, "subsidies" from American taxpayers to pay your way? It's hard to get a free ride on a ship that sinks in the middle of the ocean.... :lol:
 
Pollycy said:
Obamacare is slowly but surely coming into focus as being one of the biggest boondoggles and disasters for working American taxpayers in our history. Here's the sad story here in my home state of Colorado, and there's links to many others: Largest health insurer on Colorado exchange collapses

Colorado is only the latest where this has happened, joining seven other states where Obamacare has turned out to be a bankrupt fraud.

Hey, Obama-lovers, remember when your "messiah" said you'd save $2,500 every year with his marvelous 'socialized-medicine' scheme? Remember how you were gulled into thinking that you'd like it because, after all, the government was going to give you WELFARE -- oops -- I mean, "subsidies" from American taxpayers to pay your way? It's hard to get a free ride on a ship that sinks in the middle of the ocean.... :lol:
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Yeah, whatever happened to our premiums going down by $2500, anywho? I recall the administration got a lot of grief over the "you can keep your insurance and your doctor" lie, but not on the $2.5K.
 
It's working exactly the way it was intended to. The idea has always been to kneecap the insurance industry, make the health care industry totally reliant on the government and then abandon private medical for a fully nationalized system.
 
Lutherf said:
It's working exactly the way it was intended to. The idea has always been to kneecap the insurance industry, make the health care industry totally reliant on the government and then abandon private medical for a fully nationalized system.
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Yup. And, it's gonna a lot worse.
 
Lutherf said:
It's working exactly the way it was intended to. The idea has always been to kneecap the insurance industry, make the health care industry totally reliant on the government and then abandon private medical for a fully nationalized system.
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the only way to push socialized government healthcare is to get the insurance companies out of the way.
obamacare was never about providing health insurance to everyone. government healthcare can't happen with private insurance companies in the way.

so you collapse the industry from the inside. then when they can't survive whoever the next political hack will say that government has to take over
the entire system for the good of the populace.

it is open enrollment time again I can't wait to see how much obamacare is going to cost me this year.
 
Pollycy said:
Obamacare is slowly but surely coming into focus as being one of the biggest boondoggles and disasters for working American taxpayers in our history. Here's the sad story here in my home state of Colorado, and there's links to many others: Largest health insurer on Colorado exchange collapses

Colorado is only the latest where this has happened, joining seven other states where Obamacare has turned out to be a bankrupt fraud.

Hey, Obama-lovers, remember when your "messiah" said you'd save $2,500 every year with his marvelous 'socialized-medicine' scheme? Remember how you were gulled into thinking that you'd like it because, after all, the government was going to give you WELFARE -- oops -- I mean, "subsidies" from American taxpayers to pay your way? It's hard to get a free ride on a ship that sinks in the middle of the ocean.... :lol:
Click to expand...

It will take more than a generation to have all the problems develop and wreck their damage. But during the whole period smaller and larger corrections will become necessary and call for cash.
 
A 2016 Obamacare enrollment total of 10 million is forecast by the govt.

In our country of 330 million plus, Obama, backed by Liberals and an adoring media, destroyed the greatest healthcare system in the world for ten million people to enroll.

Truly, there is no logical explanation for anyone who would continue to vote Democrat.
 
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Two hip replacement operations have cost me a total of $0. Ditto the operation to correct Duyputrens contraction.
But then, Canada's been on the verge of bankruptcy since the government started providing health insurance, right?
 
Ray410 said:
A 2016 Obamacare enrollment total of 10 million is forecast by the govt.

In our country of 330 million plus, Obama, backed by Liberals and an adoring media, destroyed the greatest healthcare system in the world for ten million people to enroll.

Truly, there is no logical explanation for anyone who would continue to vote Democrat.
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"Greatest healthcare system in the world" :lamo way to repeat the mantra, even years later.
 
Pollycy said:
Obamacare is slowly but surely coming into focus as being one of the biggest boondoggles and disasters for working American taxpayers in our history. Here's the sad story here in my home state of Colorado, and there's links to many others: Largest health insurer on Colorado exchange collapses

Colorado is only the latest where this has happened, joining seven other states where Obamacare has turned out to be a bankrupt fraud.

Hey, Obama-lovers, remember when your "messiah" said you'd save $2,500 every year with his marvelous 'socialized-medicine' scheme? Remember how you were gulled into thinking that you'd like it because, after all, the government was going to give you WELFARE -- oops -- I mean, "subsidies" from American taxpayers to pay your way? It's hard to get a free ride on a ship that sinks in the middle of the ocean.... :lol:
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, the headline (I know you quoted it accurately) is highly misleading. This was a start-up co-op that failed and it only insured 80,000 individuals in a state with a population of about 5.5 million. So it wasn't close to the largest "insurer" but the largest co-op. It affects a little more than 1% of the population.
 
JasperL said:
Just to clarify, the headline (I know you quoted it accurately) is highly misleading. This was a start-up co-op that failed and it only insured 80,000 individuals in a state with a population of about 5.5 million. So it wasn't close to the largest "insurer" but the largest co-op. It affects a little more than 1% of the population.
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I believe that's kinda the point. If Obamadontcare is "oh so great" why are so many co-ops failing? The bureaucrats can't even suck seed at giving free **** away. How many billions of tax payer dollars have gone down this rabbit hole?
 
countryboy said:
I believe that's kinda the point. If Obamadontcare is "oh so great" why are so many co-ops failing? The bureaucrats can't even suck seed at giving free **** away. How many billions of tax payer dollars have gone down this rabbit hole?
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Well, no, the point of the OP wasn't about co-ops. Co-ops weren't mentioned at all, and the headline was highly misleading and didn't mention them. Not one comment after that mentioned co-ops.

But other than no one mentioning co-ops, that was clearly the point!
 
JasperL said:
Well, no, the point of the OP wasn't about co-ops. Co-ops weren't mentioned at all, and the headline was highly misleading and didn't mention them. Not one comment after that mentioned co-ops.

But other than no one mentioning co-ops, that was clearly the point!
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I'm mentioning them now. Why are they failing, despite billions of dollars going to them?
 
countryboy said:
I'm mentioning them now. Why are they failing, despite billions of dollars going to them?
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If I thought you had the least interest in an honest conversation, I'd go into it. But the short version from what I've read is they had too hard a time getting up to scale. Essentially the big boys can dictate terms to the providers by promising a large number of patients and in exchange get lower prices for procedures, the same way Walmart can SELL items for less than their little competitors can sometimes buy them. And being small, start-ups the co-ops were forced to essentially take the prices charged by providers, or else do very narrow networks that limited choice. Bottom line is they couldn't find a way to deliver a better product than the entrenched big boys with lots of influence. Also, the co-ops had no cushion and so no way to spend 3 or 4 years building up the required customer base that could then negotiate favorable prices.

So, the co-op experiment appears to have failed. That's life. We've wasted far more on military boondoggles in the same time period I'm sure and no one blinked an eye.
 
JasperL said:
If I thought you had the least interest in an honest conversation, I'd go into it. But the short version from what I've read is they had too hard a time getting up to scale. Essentially the big boys can dictate terms to the providers by promising a large number of patients and in exchange get lower prices for procedures, the same way Walmart can SELL items for less than their little competitors can sometimes buy them. And being small, start-ups the co-ops were forced to essentially take the prices charged by providers, or else do very narrow networks that limited choice. Bottom line is they couldn't find a way to deliver a better product than the entrenched big boys with lots of influence. Also, the co-ops had no cushion and so no way to spend 3 or 4 years building up the required customer base that could then negotiate favorable prices.

So, the co-op experiment appears to have failed. That's life. We've wasted far more on military boondoggles in the same time period I'm sure and no one blinked an eye.
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I blink both eyes at all government waste. That's what government does best. When are people going to figure that out?
 
JasperL said:
Just to clarify, the headline (I know you quoted it accurately) is highly misleading. This was a start-up co-op that failed and it only insured 80,000 individuals in a state with a population of about 5.5 million. So it wasn't close to the largest "insurer" but the largest co-op. It affects a little more than 1% of the population.
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Shhh, dont state facts like that...this thread is only here to bash Obama and Obamacare after all..!..... stay with the times and delusions.
 
countryboy said:
I'm mentioning them now. Why are they failing, despite billions of dollars going to them?
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Here is a pretty good explanation of the main reasons:

Not Again! 400,000 Americans Enrolled in Obamacare Need to Find a New Plan -- The Motley Fool

Obamacare prevented the co-ops from bringing in experienced leaders:
For starters, few co-ops had leaders with any substantive experience in the insurance industry.
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They set their rates low in order to attract market share:
Compounding the problem, most co-ops set their rates far too low during the first (and even second) year of Obamacare.
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The risk corridors didn't pay out as much as the co-ops needed:
But, as Forbes points out, the risk corridor payments made to these co-ops was in many instances much lower than what they needed to survive.
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The risk corridors didn't pay out enough for two reasons
1)
The assumption is that there simply aren't enough financially healthy insurers under Obamacare to make up the shortage needed to cover the red ink at cooperatives and other insurers that are losing substantial amounts of money.
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2)
a congressional order passed last year forbids Obamacare from borrowing federal money to cover the costs associated with the risk corridor.
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countryboy said:
I believe that's kinda the point. If Obamadontcare is "oh so great" why are so many co-ops failing? The bureaucrats can't even suck seed at giving free **** away. How many billions of tax payer dollars have gone down this rabbit hole?
Click to expand...

I think you are showing unsophisticated understanding of free enterprise.

The PPACA created a new marketplace for health insurance. People came up with new businesses and new business models to try to take advantage of the new marketplace. As the case with most start-ups, they tend to fail (for a variety of reasons)...

Shortly after the airline industry was deregulated in 1978, scores of new air carriers were formed to try to take advantage of the new marketplace. Surely you remember Air Florida, People Express, America TransAir, Air One, Empire to name a few. Of the scores, only America West, which ultimately acquired USAir and then American, survived. The failures were not an indictment as air travel being a bad business; its an indictment that bad businessmen decided to get into air travel.

When Colorado opened gambling in 1991, scores of small casinos opened in Central City, Black Hawk and Cripple Creek. Most failed. They were replaced by better capitalized regional companies and they were replaced by national companies. Again, the failure was not of industry; it was of the participants in the industry.

Sorry that you want Obamacare to fail; but it ain't gonna happen.

BTW... before Obamacare, we spent $120B per year insuring the uninsured, including $1,000 per year in the average healthcare insurance policy.
 
JasperL said:
Just to clarify, the headline (I know you quoted it accurately) is highly misleading. This was a start-up co-op that failed and it only insured 80,000 individuals in a state with a population of about 5.5 million. So it wasn't close to the largest "insurer" but the largest co-op. It affects a little more than 1% of the population.
Click to expand...

I appreciate your honesty, which is often in short supply in many politial internet forums.

And, no, one co-op in one state is not "the ball game", but it is part of a very disturbing trend that is spreading from one state to another, and which joins many instances that number in the hundreds of thousands nationwide, in which people have been thrown out of their preferred health insurance, in spite of Obama's earlier reassurances.

I do not personally know one American citizen who says that he Obamacare has given him the healthcare he wants and saved him $2,500 per year. Sure, there are "subsidies" for low-income people (which is just another word for welfare), but nobody I know of is saving anything close to that kind of money on health insurance. The middle-class is getting hosed!
 
Pollycy said:
I appreciate your honesty, which is often in short supply in many politial internet forums.

And, no, one co-op in one state is not "the ball game", but it is part of a very disturbing trend that is spreading from one state to another, and which joins many instances that number in the hundreds of thousands nationwide, in which people have been thrown out of their preferred health insurance, in spite of Obama's earlier reassurances.

I do not personally know one American citizen who says that he Obamacare has given him the healthcare he wants and saved him $2,500 per year. Sure, there are "subsidies" for low-income people (which is just another word for welfare), but nobody I know of is saving anything close to that kind of money on health insurance. The middle-class is getting hosed!
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According to your OP article this co-OP depended on the Feds to pay the bills. Obamacare doesn't that way. Each exchange is meant to be a free market and the competition would drive the premiums down. The $2500 saving promise was stupid because you can't make it happen in a free market.

Edit: I'm retired so I don't if this is true: it seems to me you wouldn't know you were part of Obamacare unless you went through the exchanges. All you would know is that you are Obamacare compliant.

Again, the CO-OP failed because they could pay the bill.
 
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Pollycy said:
I appreciate your honesty, which is often in short supply in many politial internet forums.

And, no, one co-op in one state is not "the ball game", but it is part of a very disturbing trend that is spreading from one state to another, and which joins many instances that number in the hundreds of thousands nationwide, in which people have been thrown out of their preferred health insurance, in spite of Obama's earlier reassurances.

I do not personally know one American citizen who says that he Obamacare has given him the healthcare he wants and saved him $2,500 per year. Sure, there are "subsidies" for low-income people (which is just another word for welfare), but nobody I know of is saving anything close to that kind of money on health insurance. The middle-class is getting hosed!
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Your source is terrible. It doesn't explain any of the context. Look at this one:

State regulators shut down Colorado HealthOP citing cash-reserve woes - The Denver Post

The co-op failed because it took on too much risk and congress blocked funding for risk corridors.

I like how any amount of instability in any sector of the healthcare industry is being blamed on Obamacare. Like every business is supposed to succeed.

Your weird $2,500 anecdote is completely meaningless. I don't think anybody is interested in the so-called experiences of your friends.
 
Ray410 said:
A 2016 Obamacare enrollment total of 10 million is forecast by the govt.

In our country of 330 million plus, Obama, backed by Liberals and an adoring media, destroyed the greatest healthcare system in the world for ten million people to enroll.

Truly, there is no logical explanation for anyone who would continue to vote Democrat.
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*bolded for relevance

What world are you living in?

The American healthcare system is virtually predatory!

Healthcare is by far the largest cause of American citizens going bankrupt! (62%)

And 42 million uninsured?

Please tell me what's so great, here.
 
Chomsky said:
*bolded for relevance

What world are you living in?

The American healthcare system is virtually predatory!

Healthcare is by far the largest cause of American citizens going bankrupt! (62%)

And 42 million uninsured?

Please tell me what's so great, here.
Click to expand...

Uh....we spend twice as a share of GDP as most developed countries for mostly mediocre results? And I think we pay by far the most for pharmaceuticals, which is great for drug stocks, and doctors make far more here than elsewhere. And there is the administrative waste from having so many payers! It's fun! My mother in law had surgery three months ago and we just got three more bills in Friday and Saturday's mail - love those.
 
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