Robert Laszewski—a prominent consultant to health insurance companies—recently wrote in a remarkably candid blog post that, while Obamacare is almost certain to cause insurance costs to skyrocket even higher than it already has, “insurers won’t be losing a lot of sleep over it.” How can this be? Because insurance companies won’t bear the cost of their own losses—at least not more than about a quarter of them. The other three-quarters will be borne by American taxpayers.

For some reason, President Obama hasn’t talked about this particular feature of his signature legislation. Indeed, it’s bad enough that Obamacare is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to funnel $1,071,000,000,000.00 (that’s $1.071 trillion) over the next decade (2014 to 2023) from American taxpayers, through Washington, to health insurance companies. It’s even worse that Obamacare is trying to coerce Americans into buying those same insurers’ product (although there are escape routes). It’s almost unbelievable that it will also subsidize those same insurers’ losses.

But that’s exactly what it will do—unless Republicans take action. As Laszewski explains, Obamacare contains a “Reinsurance Program that caps big claim costs for insurers (individual plans only).” He writes that “in 2014, 80% of individual costs between $45,000 and $250,000 are paid by the government [read: by taxpayers], for example.”

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By Rick Moran.

Desperate people do desperate things. In this case, Senator Mark Udall asked the state’s insurance commission to downplay the number of policy cancellations by changing the definition of “cancelled.”

Breitbart:

CompleteColorado.com reports that emails show U.S. Senator Mark Udall’s (D-CO) office pressured the Colorado Division of Insurance to downplay the number of insurance cancellations caused by the rollout of ObamaCare. A full 249,199 Colorado citizens were victimized by ObamaCare’s cancellations. According to the emails, Udall’s office hoped to change the definition of a “cancellation” as a way to lower the number. All of this occurred late last year as the storm around cancellations was engulfing Democrats and the president.

From an email inside the Colorado Division of Insurance (DOI), Director of External Affairs Jo Donlin bluntly stated to her colleagues:

Sen. Udall says our numbers were wrong. They are not wrong. Cancellation notices affected 249,199 people. They want to trash our numbers. I’m holding strong while we get more details. Many have already done early renewals. Regardless, they received cancellation notices.

Read more from this story HERE.

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13,000 Obamacare applicants have no records with health insurers

By Tom Murphy and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, AP.

Record-keeping snags could complicate the start of insurance coverage this month as people begin using policies they purchased under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

Insurance companies are still trying to sort out cases of so-called health insurance orphans, customers for whom the government has a record that they enrolled, but the insurer does not.

Government officials say the problem is real but under control, with orphan records being among the roughly 13,000 problem cases they are trying to resolve with insurers. But insurance companies are worried the process will grow more cumbersome as they deal with the flood of new customers who signed up in December as enrollment deadlines neared.

More than 1 million people have signed up through the federal insurance market that serves 36 states. Officials contend the error rate for new signups is close to zero.

Read more from this story HERE.

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ObamaCare Is a Losing Bet

By Anthony J.Ciani.

“Aim for the heart, Ramon,” the Man With No Name taunted. In the movie For a Few Dollars More, Clint Eastwood’s character covered his heart with an iron plate hidden beneath his poncho, knowing that Ramon would stubbornly aim for his heart and run out of ammunition. Making your opponent waste energy and resources is a classic tactic. At the monthly meeting of the Palatine Township Republican Organization, Congressman Roskam made one thing abundantly clear: the Republican strategy for 2014 is ObamaCare, just as the strategy in 2012 was the economy, and just as Ramon’s strategy was aiming for the heart. If Republicans aim only at ObamaCare, they will find an iron plate.

In September of 2012, Mitt Romney looked fairly well poised to beat President Obama. The lead was not astronomical, but most voters saw the economy as the major issue, and increasingly saw Republicans as better suited to fixing it. Then came the smoke and mirrors. The power of the President was abused to alter economic figures, creating a false and drastic dip in September unemployment. This was not a last ditch effort, but a careful manipulation of census data over two years. Back in 2010, Democratic strategists realized that the highly partisan, Democratic “Porkulus” would fail and the economy would be an albatross about their necks, and so planned the massive deception for 2012; a hidden iron plate to cover their hearts.

The second phase of ObamaCare had a disastrous rollout, and the sticker shock is still stinging, but the general election is 10 months away, and the iron plate is plainly visible. Most of the phase-ins and deadlines of the Affordable Care Act begin just after or well before the Federal elections. For those parts that were planned poorly, Obama has issued imperial decrees to move them post-election. In 2013, the Democrats branded a few million Americans with the mark of ObamaCare. So many people complained, that Obama put the brand back into the fire and promised not to take it out again until after the 2014 elections, when it will be red hot and ready to brand all Americans. All praise the benevolence of our Glorious Leader.

Read more from this story HERE.