The Patriot Post® · Surviving ObamaCare Co-Ops Are Money Holes

Turns out, the Obama administration lied about how much money it recouped after 12 of the 23 ObamaCare co-ops failed. Last year, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the government was able to salvage $200 million of the $4.6 billion CMS spent on the project designed to increase competition in the system. That dismal assessment was rosy at best, for the actual amount the government recovered weighed in at only $21 million.

This comes at a time when CMS wants to tweak the rules of ObamaCare so that the surviving co-ops can seek money from private investors and state governments. Currently, the 11 surviving co-ops are losing money, bleeding a collective $400 million in 2015. So instead of realizing the co-ops are black holes for dollars, the Obama administration is doubling down. “CMS may try questionable, ad hoc methods to shore up the failing co-ops at the expense of taxpayers, but little is likely to change until the administration realizes their experiment is failing and reverses course,” Sen. Orrin Hatch told The Daily Signal. “Instead, with this rule, the administration regrettably puts enrollment numbers ahead of financial viability and protection of scarce taxpayer dollars.” Government money is one thing. But what are the chances that some private citizen with his or her own money wants to bankroll a nonprofit with a track record of running a deficit? Drip, drip, drip — It’s another move as government and insurance companies alike find that they cannot fund the system Obama built.