Byron York
Washington Examiner
3/31/2011
Investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee have discovered that a little-known provision in the national health care law has allowed the federal government to pay nearly $2 billion to unions, state public employee systems, and big corporations to subsidize health coverage costs for early retirees. At the current rate of payment, the $5 billion appropriated for the program could be exhausted well before it is set to expire.
The discovery came on the eve of an oversight hearing focused on the workings of an obscure agency known as CCIO — the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. CCIO, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, oversees the implementation of Section 1102 of the Affordable Care Act, which created something called the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. The legislation called for the program to spend a total of $5 billion, beginning in June 2010 — shortly after Obamacare was passed — and ending on January 1, 2014, as the system of national health care exchanges was scheduled to go into effect….
…Republican investigators count the early-retiree program among those that would never have become law had Democrats allowed more scrutiny of Obamacare at the time it was pushed through the House and Senate. Since then, Republicans have kept an eye on the program but were not able to pry any information out of the administration until after the GOP won control of the House last November. Now, finally, they are learning what’s going on.
The complete post is at the Washington Examiner.
At The Daily Caller, Republicans question Obamacare’s $5 billion early retiree ‘slush fund’
Related: The Golden Years Of AARP
Health Reform: The tax-exempt seniors group that pushed hard to get ObamaCare passed stands to reap a billion-dollar reward over the next decade as ObamaCare destroys the competition to the products it endorses.
During what passed for a debate on ObamaCare, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which administers benefits under Medicare, issued what can only be called a gag order after private insurer Humana Inc. warned its Medicare Advantage customers in a letter that ObamaCare might cause them to lose some benefits.
It was because that letter exposed one of Obama-Care’s biggest lies — the claim that if you liked your coverage you can keep it…
