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October 19, 2015 02:21 PM UTC

Gardner's Co-op Hypocrisy Practically Unbelievable

  • 17 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Sen. Cory Gardner.
Sen. Cory Gardner.

There’s a huge hole in stories written in the wake of Friday’s announcement that the state’s largest nonprofit insurance provider Colorado HealthOP would be dropped from the insurance marketplace due to concerns about the organization’s financial stability. Revisiting a story cited in a reader’s diary Saturday from the Denver Post’s Alicia Wallace:

The Colorado Division of Insurance dropped HealthOP from the state insurance exchange because it no longer meets state capital-reserve requirements.

Without the ability to sell 2016 plans, the low-cost insurer is effectively out of business…

Colorado HealthOP’s financial health was rocked this month when the federal government said it would not make the full “risk-corridors” reimbursements promised by an Affordable Care Act program to help insurers take on the sickest, most expensive members.

It’s very unfortunate that stories like this one don’t explain the full facts of what happened, to the extent of becoming outright lies of omission. As Davie explained this weekend, the high-risk subsidies that could have helped the startup health insurance cooperatives set up under Obamacare survive until becoming self-sufficient were undermined during budget negotiations between the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress. Several years ago, as the nation was facing a so-called “fiscal cliff” as a result of GOP refusal to pass a budget, the funding for these organizations was greatly reduced as part of the deal to keep the government functioning.

Meanwhile the co-ops signed up large numbers of relatively ill new patients, incurring big losses that temporary “risk corridor” payments were meant to offset. Last month, however, the federal government announced that it had only a small percentage of the money it had promised co-ops under the temporary “risk corridor” subsidy program–leading directly to financial crisis at several state insurance co-ops including Colorado’s:

Liberals, dismayed that a public option wasn’t included in the healthcare law, viewed co-ops as alternatives to provide competition over large, established health insurers. But co-op funding was slashed multiple times before the not-for-profit companies ever got off the ground, and plans to create a co-op in every state were swiftly dashed.

Conservatives have criticized co-ops as a waste of taxpayer money, since co-ops were awarded federal loans to get started. However, strict conditions were placed on the loans, including a quick payback period and prohibition from using the money on advertising.

Regardless of the daunting challenges faced by co-ops through no fault of their own, Sen. Cory Gardner’s statement Friday on Colorado HealthOP’s setback predictably laid the entire debacle at the feet of the Obama administration:

“This failure can be added to the very long list of Obamacare’s broken promises. Taxpayers are on the hook for millions of dollars in loans given out to the CO-OP, money that will likely never be repaid. The years since Obamacare’s passage have been marked by crisis after crisis in healthcare, and it’s far past time for a new plan.”

The problem is, Gardner knows exactly why this happened–the funding for the co-ops was slashed as part of the fiscal wrangling between the White House and the GOP-led Congress. Gardner was there. It’s fair to question why the Obama administration was willing to make such a bargain, which in the 2013 Washington Post story cited above was identified as a central reason the co-ops were in long-term, fiscal danger–that and the numerous concessions to the health insurance industry that onerously restricted how the co-ops could conduct business. But you can’t claim Gardner didn’t support hobbling the co-ops from the outset, because he did.

And it gets better. As the Greeley Tribune reported in November of 2013, Gardner took a direct, unapologetic shot:

U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo. joined as an original co-sponsor Wednesday of H.R. 3541, the House companion bill to Sen. Marco Rubio’s S. 1726, the Obamacare Taxpayer Bailout Prevention Act…

Like S. 1726, H.R. 3541 would repeal Obamacare’s risk corridor provision. [Pols emphasis]

Bottom line: Cory Gardner is not just an observer in this destruction of the Affordable Care Act’s nonprofit co-op system, which was itself a compromise put together after a more robust (and arguably much more functional) “public option” insurance entity was discarded. From Gardner’s support for throttling the co-ops during high-stakes budget negotiations to trying to kill the “risk corridor” reimbursement program off completely, Gardner worked to bring to pass the very “crisis” he claims to be upset about.

And now, Gardner is pointing fingers over the consequences of his own actions. If you think about that for a moment, that’s really an incredible situation.

As in incredibly deceptive.

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17 thoughts on “Gardner’s Co-op Hypocrisy Practically Unbelievable”

  1. So when Senator Cory Gardner calls his first witness in his "investigation" into who killed the Co-op program, do you think it should be Congressman Cory Gardner?

    1. It looks to me like Gardner knew these coops would fail and tried to limit the damage to the taxpayer.

      Thanks for standing up to Democrat waste and corruption. This was the same health insurance scheme that used naked models on the 16th Street Mall and those terrible Brosurance ads. They needed to go.

      1. Moderatus: coming from the guy that peddles videos of miscarriages, and falsely claims that they are abortion snuff films … you had BETTER not lecture us on good taste and public decorum.  You singlehandedly scraped rock bottom.  

        Corey Gardner wasn't trying to limit damage to the taxpayer.  He was sandbagging coops from behind – in a way that was complicated, and wouldn't make the news.   That way, Gardner could later go public and say "Nyah nyah, Democrat failure, government sux" without accountability.  Exactly the same way the rest of the GOP spends all their time sabotaging and defunding government programs.  The failure makes the news – the reason for the failure doesn't.  

        1. The reason for the failure is simple: the government should not be propping up economically unviable schemes. That was Cory's position from the beginning, and all of his actions have been consistent with that goal. We've got to get the government out of health care and let the free market work. That's the only way to reform health care.

          1. Awesome sauce.  I guess it would be really inconvenient right here if I pointed out that the template for Obamacare was originally designed by the Heritage Foundation, and that is was supposed to BE the free market alternative, featuring private insurers and private insurance policies, but with enough government intervention to fill in coverage gaps and market failure.

            So when you say "get the government out of health care and let the free market work " and "that's the only way to reform health care" – that's an interesting tip of the hand by you.   I guess you are all for scrapping Medicaid and Medicare?  That's the only way, huh?   Is that your friend Cory's position too?

          2. Economically unviable (not a word)? Like, say, propping up farmers to grow corn and soybean? Or is that different? 

            Economically unviable (still not a word)? Like, say, propping up oil companies while they rake in record profits? 

            Or Economically unviable (still not a word) like a health insurance company getting 80,000 people insured, that people actually LIKE working with, that's scheduled to be profitable within a year and pay back all of its loans ahead of schedule? 

            1. Yep. The idea that there is a truly free market in any aspect of the economy is a joke. That would mean no breaks or subsidies for any industry or corporation. How the right would squeal over any attempt to make that a reality.

              The idea that quality, rather than minimal, health care should be available only to the affluent (with the rest of us making do with high copays and deductibles and hopes of not getting seriously ill until we qualify for medicare) is one that the rest of the modern industrialized world rightly considers barabaric. Along with things like execution by the state, execution of the mentally ill and deficient and other quaint customs that set us apart.

              It's not as if one can choose not to have a body to maintain as one can choose to do without a car, after all. Bodies are not optional and it's a national disgrace that quality healthcare for those bodies should be less available here, in the wealthy and powerful US, than in the rest of the civilized world.

              On the plus side it does make us exceptional for those who like to carry on about American Exceptionalism. Guess our exceptionally poor universal access to affordable quality health care despite exceptionally high per capita cost does go nicely with our exceptional concentration of wealth and income at the top and exceptional lack of upward mobility. So here’s to being exceptionally without a 21st century civilized universal single payer healthcare system. Yay exceptional us.

              1. "Markets" are a social construct — you can't have millions of completely independent unconnected free-to-do-whatever individuals (anarchists) and maintain a social construct. That requires self-control at a minimum, and then, unfortunately, also a bit of regulation (of some type and degree) for those too damn greedy or immature to self-control and recognize that there are others occupying this world, too.  

                Most "Free market" palaver is dog whistle — let me explain to you why I and mine should be able to freely and mercilessly screw you and yours …

          3. Free market.  You're a riot an idiot, Moddy. Let's take a look at a coop on the eastern plains that happens to be in the home county of myself and the junior senator, Plains Cooperative Telephone Association. They were recently awarded a grant from the Feds for their broadband infrastructure that will serve 1,410 customers.  The grant total was $1,672,080 coupled with a low-interest Rural Utilities Service loan of $9,475,120.00  If I apply those numbers in the same proportion to the 80,000 health coop members who are soon to be without health care, that would be the equivalent of providing the health coop a $95 million grant and a long-term, low-interest loan of $537 million.  

            All of this happened on Congressman Gardners watch.  You can be assured he was aware of the loan/grant package and fully supported the request to USDA.  To be clear, I think programs like this are necessary and beneficial for rural America.  What I loathe is Gardners hypocrisy and Moddy's willful ignorance. 

            A link to the Colorado cooperative telephone companies who participated in getting this 'free stuff' JEB! likes to talk about starts on page 20:

            http://www.rd.usda.gov/files/reports/RBBreportV5ForWeb.pdf 

          4. Over the past 17 years the Federal Crop Insurance Program has subsidized the private crop insurance market in Colorado, on average, just over $73 million annually.  Colorado has a little over 35,000 farms and ranches (less than half the number of participants in the health coop). Yet, Gardner can't support the idea of $50 million  to provide the equivalent protection of a 'health hailstorm' for some of the most-challenged Coloradans?

          5. USDA announces $2.3 billion in loans today to socialist organizations rural electric cooperatives to enhance their infrastructure.  Why does Uncle Sam have to carry this water? /sarcasm/, of course, but riddle me this: why is it that Gardner is taking a 'buffet approach' to cooperative models? Why is it that the high-risk insurance pool is fundamentally different than the high-risk crop insurance pools in eastern Colorado?  Why is it different from subsidized infrastructure investments in electrical infrastructure.  Again, don't get me wrong – these programs are necessary.  The government funds these activities because the private market either 'won't' – or they would charge an interest rate that would reflect that risk, raising the cost of electricity and crop insurance for my fellow bootstrappers. 

      2. Hey Moddy, you really put the "DUH" in DUHmphuck!  As was pointed out in the WaPo article, the initially planned funding was via grants.  But the GOP forced them to be loans, to be rapidly repaid.  Then they cut the funding to ensure the most impossible financial conditions possible.

        As I said in the diary:

        So, a program intended to help individuals and small businesses with affordable health coverage is now doing exactly what the GOP designed it to do — fail — and even better, waste taxpayer’s money to prove that their dystopian view of government prevails. 

      3. Except…. nah. 

        Colorado HealthOP was on schedule to be profitable AND pay back all of its loans next year. Shutting them down means that money is lost, period. There's also the matter of an additional $50m to shut it down.

        So no, dummy, it doesn't "limit damage to the taxpayer" so much as it guarantees damage to the taxpayer.

  2. Uncle Sam has given low/no interest loans, grants and technical assistance to coops for decades. We decided long ago it was a public benefit for coops like rural electrics, cooperative telephone associations., grazing associations, etc   to be subsidized by the US taxpayer. There have been more than a handful of those go belly up over the years. Gardners family has directly benefitted from the billions of federal transfers to rural Colorado in particular. If our junior Senator had offered a single alternative during the time he  cast 60+ votes to repeal that would be one thing. Instead – he serves up this steaming-pile-of-crap press release. I'd like to say he had abandoned the least amongst his statewide constituents – but he would have had to have been there to begin with for that statement to be true.  He's Louie Ghomert with a better haircut. 

  3. Cory is an unapologetic gold-digger who is laughing all the way to the bank. He has no scruples, being willing to do and say whatever his sugar daddies tell him .

    He is a Koch whore..bottom line…

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