You Won’t BELIEVE How Much Taxpayer Money The Failed Obamacare Co-Ops Received

The collapse of Oregon’s Health Co-Op marks the 15th Obamacare co-op to shut down, resulting in a total of over $1.5 billion in taxpayer money lost.

The Daily Signal provided a breakdown of each of the 15 co-ops that failed and how much federal taxpayer money they received:

• Community Health Alliance Mutual Insurance Company in Tennessee: $73,306,700.
• CoOpportunity Health in Iowa and Nebraska: $145,312,100.
• Health Republic Insurance of New York: $265,100,000.
• Kentucky Health Cooperative, Inc.: $146,494,772.
• Louisiana Health Cooperative, Inc.: $65,790,660.
• Nevada Health Cooperative: $65,924,396.
• Colorado HealthOP: $72,335,129.
• Health Republic Insurance of Oregon: $60,648,505.
• Arches Mutual Insurance Company: $89,650,303.
• Consumers’ Choice Health Company: $87,578,208.
• Meritus Health Partners: $93,313,233.
• Consumers Mutual Health Insurance of Michigan: $71,534,300.
• InHealth Mutual: $129,225,604.
• HealthyCT: $127,980,768.
• Oregon’s Health Co-Op: $56,656,900.

It all adds up to a total of $1,550,885,578 in federal taxpayer money down the drain.

One of the reasons for all these co-ops going bankrupt is because they all owed money under Obamacare’s ill-conceived risk adjustment program, which “redistributes money from insurers with healthy customers to those with sicker, more costly customers.”

After incurring a loss of $18.4 million in 2015, Oregon’s Health Co-Op was charged $900,000 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which ultimately forced the co-op to fold.

“Contrary to everything CMS keeps saying, it looks like the risk adjustment program is not working and is harming smaller insurers, including the co-ops, and not just the co-ops,” The Heritage Foundation’s Ed Hailsmer told The Daily Signal. “So in some cases, the need to make risk adjustments payments may push them over the edge.”

There are now only eight Obamacare co-ops remaining nationwide, and they’re expected to owe over $100 million to the federal government under the risk adjustment program.

Between the collapse of the co-ops and the expected spikes in health insurance premiums, it’s no wonder that the left is trying to reintroduce the public option into the healthcare debate.