That promise was shattered when Arizona insurers began cancelling plans in order to deal with new costs and regulations:
- “Four major health insurance companies will discontinue preferred-provider plans for tens of thousands of Arizonans next year on the federal marketplace.” (Ken Alltucker, "Why 4 Major Arizona Insurance Carriers Are Dropping PPO Plans In Favor Of HMO Plans," Arizona Republic, 10/3/15)
Then nearly, 60,000 Arizonans lost their coverage due to the failure of a health insurance co-op set up under Obamacare:
- “A nonprofit health insurance co-op created to provide competition to traditional insurance companies in Arizona has been removed from the federal marketplace, just days before a new enrollment period begins Sunday…Roughly 59,000 Arizonans covered by Meritus will now have to scramble to find new coverage, according to the state.” (“Arizona Health Insurance Co-Op Taken Out Of Marketplace,” Associated Press, 10/31/15)
And now the Obama administration is under fire for sinking $1.2 billion in public loans into failed health insurance co-ops across the country:
- Senators on Thursday pressed a top ObamaCare official over a string of failures in non-profit health insurers known as co-ops. Twelve of the 23 co-ops, set up under ObamaCare to compete with larger private insurers, have gone out of business due to financial problems. The Senate Finance Committee on Thursday questioned Andy Slavitt, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), about the roughly $1.2 billion in government loans that went to the failed co-ops and why the administration did not pick up on problems sooner. (Peter Sullivan, “Lawmakers Grill Obamacare Official Over Co-Op Failures,” The Hill, 1/21/16)
The broken Obamacare promises keep piling up for Ann Kirkpatrick while she only doubles down on her support for the failed legislation. Kirkpatrick owes Arizona families an explanation for her loyal support for the Obama agenda at their expense.