GOP Senators Seek Block on $2.5 Billion Obamacare Bailout

Republican senators, led by former presidential candidate Marco Rubio, are working to block the Obama administration from a planned $2.5 billion bailout under a provision in the Affordable Care Act in hopes of keeping taxpayers from having to pay the bill for additional costs incurred by providers.

"American taxpayers should never be responsible for bailing out health insurance companies that lose money under Obamacare's crony capitalist bailout program," the Florida senator told The Washington Free Beacon Thursday. "It is crucial that we do everything we can to continue restrictions on the bailout program and support these provisions throughout continued consideration of this year's appropriations measures."

The delegation, consisting of Sens. Rubio, Mike Lee, Utah; John Cornyn, Texas; John Barrasso, Wyoming; Cory Gardner, Colorado; David Vitter, Louisiana; Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma; and Thom Tillis, North Carolina, on Thursday sent a letter to leaders on the Senate Appropriations Committee to outline their stand on the Obamacare provision on risk corridors.

The provision allows insurance companies to be reimbursed if their costs go higher than expected while selling inexpensive insurance policies. The senators want language in the budget for fiscal year 2017 that would keep the risk corridor program budget neutral.

"Obamacare is a disastrously flawed law, and I continue to do everything I can to ensure American taxpayers are not left bailing out health insurers because of its massive failures," Rubio commented.

In the letter, the senators say the Obama administration will go ahead with the bailout, "in addition to the harm this disastrous law has placed on Americans . . . we must remain steadfast in not allowing the Obama administration to further harm individuals who have already been burdened with rising premiums, forced to change doctors, or have hours at their jobs reduced in order to fill the coffers of big insurance companies."

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