Time magazine wrote "8 States Where Obamacare Rates Are Rising by at Least 30%" without mentioning Rubio's role in why. Ditto for NPR's "22 Percent Hike in Obamacare Rates"... and CNN's "Obamacare Premiums Soar By 22%." If you date-limit just to October of 2016 -- the month before the election -- you can find hundreds of similar articles. It was a huge story, but somehow Little Marco's role in it all -- along with his friends in the GOP -- never made it into any of the stories.
Only the Times, back the previous year, had really given much coverage to the story, noting, "[B]ecause of Mr. Rubio's efforts, the administration says it will pay only 13 percent of what insurance companies were expecting to receive this year. The payments were supposed to help insurers cope with the risks they assumed when they decided to participate in the law's new insurance marketplaces."
Meanwhile, federal judge Thomas Wheeler of the US Court of Federal Claims, ruled recently (as reported last month by Forbes) that the feds actually have to pay back -- to the tune of about $8 billion -- the moneys lost by health insurance companies operating in good faith.
But it's way too late; dozens of nonprofits started to provide health insurance through the exchanges have already gone bankrupt, and the health insurance giants are both subsuming their smaller competitors and merging like there's no tomorrow. Additionally, Wheeler's ruling is certain to be appealed -- meaning it's in limbo for the moment.
So, yes, Donald Trump is right that Obamacare had been sabotaged, in a way that would virtually guarantee at least some level of crisis by 2017. Where he's sadly, paranoiacly wrong is in attributing that sabotage to President Obama.
Democrats should have been screaming bloody murder for the past two years. Maybe they can start now, every time a reporter or Republican says, "Obamacare is failing..."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
2
1
