Hat tip Paul T.
Is Obamacare actually failing? Some parts, like the 16 failed co-ops, are. But when it comes to health plans dropping out of Obamacare exchanges, it’s a legitimate question. HMOs have a disturbing history of dropping enrollees – until Congress meets their payment demands.
This pattern began after Congress embraced managed-care in 1982. Nine years after the HMO Act of 1973 became law, Medicare added HMOs,described as “risk-based private health plans, or those plans that accept full responsibility (i.e. risk) for the costs of their enrollees’ care in exchange for a prospective, monthly, per-enrollee payment.”
Everything went swimmingly for HMOs until Congress enacted the Medicare+Choice HMO program in 1997 and cut payments. The GAO says nearly 100 plans either terminated contracts with the federal government or fully or partially withdrew as a result. Health Care Financing Reviewreported HMOs dropped more than 1.6 million Medicare recipients over three years.
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