Portman Stands Up for Ohioans Hurt By CO-OP Collapse
Press Release
With the announced closing of Ohio's CO-OP InHealth Mutual, nearly 22,000 Ohioans have to scramble for new health insurance coverage while facing rising health care costs, despite having been previously encouraged by the Obama Administration to enroll in the Obamacare marketplace and to trust in its plan options. Senator Portman, the Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), is demanding answers, saying that the Administration "owes these Ohio families a solution to a problem it created." The Associated Press highlighted Portman's efforts to stand up for the thousands of Ohio consumer who now face increased heath care costs at no fault of their own:
"Health care advocates and a U.S. senator are raising concerns that nearly 22,000 Ohioans could end up paying much more for health care as their struggling insurer winds down its operations.
"Republican Sen. Rob Portman asked federal officials on Thursday whether InHealth Mutual policyholders will have to satisfy new insurance deductibles if they switch plans, though they may have already paid hundreds or thousands of dollars this year with the financially troubled carrier.
"Portman also questioned whether some policyholders might face a federal tax penalty if they continue to stay on a plan that no longer meets certain minimum coverage requirements under the Affordable Care Act.
""In short, Ohioans who trusted in the Obamacare marketplace now find themselves between a regulatory rock and financial hardship,' Portman wrote to Andy Slavitt, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services."
Portman has taken the lead in exposing the reckless mismanagement of the Obamacare CO-OP program. In March, PSI, under Portman's leadership, released a report and held a hearing on the state of the CO-OP program. The widely covered report exposed previously unreported mismanagement, reckless judgment, and taxpayer waste in the Obamacare CO-OP program -- a $2.4 billion loan program that launched 23 health insurance start-ups, more than half of which have failed. The report also provided new information on the exorbitant losses racked up by the failed CO-OPs throughout 2014 and 2015, and the dim prospects that taxpayers will recover much, if any, of HHS's $1.2 billion investment in those companies.
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