Stop Making Excuses for Obamacare

The Obamacare insurance exchanges are not functioning according to plan. At the hands of insurers and the flawed six-year-old act, patients, taxpayers, and businesses have been handcuffed into paying increasingly high premiums, are facing less consumer choice in coverage, and Americans are quickly finding health care to be just what the Obama administration has fought against: unaffordable.

In an effort to placate insurers and keep them in the failing Obamacare exchanges, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) hosted an “inaugural insurers summit” at HHS headquarters last Thursday. Health care leaders such as HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell and CMS Acting Director Andy Slavitt attempted to hide the deep flaws of Obamacare and its exchanges by sharing insurance industry success stories. It’s important to recognize, however, that successful insurers don’t necessarily equate to a successful America, especially when consumers and taxpayers are put at risk.

In what has been a tumultuous few months for the insurance industry, Thursday’s program was further proof that the administration continually makes excuses for Obamacare’s failures and taxpayers are tired of it. In the past several months, more than half of the Obamacare co-ops have closed, and now, large insurance companies are threatening to leave parts of exchanges. Some providers, like UnitedHealth, one of the largest insurers in the country, have already announced that they plan to leave almost all of the exchanges in 2017.

Slavitt told insurers that the challenges in the Obamacare marketplace will not get solved overnight. However, insurance companies have cited the failing, messy dynamics of the exchanges as grounds to ask for premium increases in the double digits. With some states like Texas asking for nearly a 60 percent increase, this trend will be sure to create nightmares for businesses and consumers who depend on insurance companies to provide them with affordable and accessible health care.

What is unsurprising, given the close ties of Obamacare architects and the insurance industry, is that providers are benefitting from the steep premium hikes. However, this is at the expense of taxpayers, patients and businesses who are left out in the cold and must figure out how to keep their health care plans and ability to access the right coverage.

With 2016 almost halfway done, it’s time to start thinking about proactive and tangible solutions to help Americans remain insured in 2017, despite the current state of Obamacare. Highlighting insurer success stories won’t fix our health care system, but putting consumers and taxpayers first will.