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Grassroots rallies behind effort, as new co-sponsors sign on

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Congressman Tim Griffin (R-AR) today welcomed new signs of growing momentum against a taxpayer-funded bailout of health insurance companies under ObamaCare. In a recent letter to Rubio and Griffin, 33 national groups and leaders, representing the views of millions of Americans, formed a coalition in support of legislation to eliminate ObamaCare risk corridor payments.

There are currently 13 Senate co-sponsors of S.1726, The ObamaCare Taxpayer Bailout Prevention Act. In the House, H.R. 3541 currently has 54 co-sponsors.

“As awareness grows about the likelihood of a taxpayer-funded bailout of health insurers under ObamaCare, this possibility will be taken off the table,” said Rubio and Griffin in a joint statement. “The American people are tired of paying for Washington’s mistakes and tired of politicians who leave them and future generations with the bill. If ObamaCare can’t survive without a taxpayer-funded bailout, it’s another sure sign this entire health law has to be replaced.”

In November, Rubio and Griffin introduced The ObamaCare Taxpayer Bailout Prevention Act, a bill that would eliminate a provision of ObamaCare that allows for taxpayer-funded bailouts of insurance companies at the Obama Administration’s sole discretion. Under ObamaCare’s section 1342, so-called risk corridors were established for the law’s first three years as a safety net for insurers who experience financial losses. The Rubio-Griffin bill would fully repeal the risk corridor provision, thereby ensuring that no bailout will occur under ObamaCare’s section 1342.

Last week, 33 groups and leaders delivered the following letter to Rubio and Griffin. A PDF is available here. In addition to the signatories below, the legislation has been endorsed by American Conservative Union, Americans for Prosperity, Center for Freedom and Prosperity, Club for Growth, R Street Institute, and TeaParty.net.

January 21, 2014

The Honorable
Senator Marco Rubio
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20010

The Honorable
Representative Tim Griffin
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Senator Rubio and Representative Griffin:

We, the undersigned, strongly support and endorse your efforts to eliminate the “risk corridor” payments in the Affordable Care Act that prevent participating insurance companies from sustaining Obamacare-inflicted financial losses.

Obamacare’s risk corridor program is nothing more than a built-in, blank-check bailout of the health insurance companies. These annual, unlimited payments, intended to mitigate the law’s effects on insurers and mask its true costs, will in fact only encourage private companies to gamble with taxpayers’ money. This bailout has no policy justification except to put taxpayers on the hook for losses incurred by private corporations.

Free markets necessitate that private companies rightly keep the rewards of their own good choices, and equally they must bear the costs of their own poor choices.  It is wrong for private health insurance companies to shift their financial losses onto the American taxpayer.

The Administration’s enrollment reports suggest that the exchanges are attracting a disproportionate share of older people, while high premiums and out-of-pocket costs could well be deterring the healthy from signing up. If so, insurers can be expected to experience significant financial losses, perhaps running into tens of billions of dollars. While the exact budgetary cost won’t be known until the exchanges have been operating for a year, we do know that it will come on top of a staggering $1 trillion already slated under Obamacare to go to insurance companies over the coming decade.

Eliminating the risk-corridor payments would avert an additional massive wealth transfer from the American taxpayer to private insurers.

We hope you share this letter with colleagues and congressional leaders in order to build support for repealing Obamacare’s built-in bailout of the insurance industry.

Sincerely,

Matt Kibbe
President
FreedomWorks

Dan Perrin
President
The HSA Coalition

Michael A. Needham
CEO
Heritage Action for America

Amy Kremer
Chairman
Tea Party Express

Jim Martin
Chairman
60 Plus Association

Heather Higgins
President and CEO
Independent Women’s Voice

The Honorable Betsy McCaughey
Former Lieutenant Governor, State of New York
Author, Beating Obamacare 

Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform

Brandon Arnold
Vice President of Government Affairs
National Taxpayers Union

David Williams
President
Taxpayers Protection Alliance

Peter Ferrara
Heartland Institute
National Tax Limitation Foundation

Thomas Schatz
President
Council for Citizens Against Government Waste

Brian Baker
President
Ending Spending

Seton Motley
President
Less Government

Phil Kerpen
President
American Commitment

Dave Wallace
Founder
Restore America’s Mission

Ken Hoagland
Chairman
Restore America’s Voice

Colin A. Hanna
President
Let Freedom Ring

John Tate
President
Campaign for Liberty

Andrew Langer
President
Institute for Liberty

Mat Staver
Chairman
Liberty Counsel Action

Gregory T. Angelo
Executive Director
Log Cabin Republicans

Peter J. Thomas
Chairman
The Conservative Caucus  

Amy Ridenour
Chairman
National Center for Public Policy Research

William H. Shaker
President 
American Council for Health Care Reform 

Eric Novack, MD
Chairman
US Health Freedom Coalition

Greg Scandlen
Founder
Health Benefits Group

Christopher J. Conover
Research Scholar
Duke University

Donna Hamilton
Executive Director
Virginians for Quality Healthcare

Naomi Lopez Bauman
Illinois Policy Action

Ginni Thomas
Liberty Consulting

Dan Bongino
2012 Republican Nominee for United States Senate
Maryland

Morton Blackwell
Chairman
The Weyrich Lunch