Failed ObamaCare co-ops have not repaid $1.2B in federal loans, docs say

The dozen failed ObamaCare cooperatives have not repaid any of the $1.2 billion in federal loans they received and still owe more than $1 billion in additional liabilities, according to recent financial statements cited Thursday at a congressional hearing.

“We shouldn’t hold our breath on repayment,” Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said in his opening statement at the hearing.

“In some states, these losses will be absorbed by other insurance companies—which means, by the policyholders of other insurance companies who have to pay increased … premiums,” he said. “In other states, doctors, hospitals and individual patients stand to suffer large out-of-pocket losses due to the co-op failures—as our report details.”

“Once the co-ops got going in 2014, things went south in a hurry—both in terms of financial losses and enrollment figures that wildly deviated from the co-ops’ own projections,” Portman said. “Despite getting regular reports that the co-ops were hemorrhaging cash, HHS [the Department of Health and Human Services] took essentially no corrective action for over a year.”

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