A House Oversight Committee report reveals that the White House actively pursued ways to protect insurance companies after they threatened to raise premiums, according to the National Review.
Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett intervened when an insurance CEO threatened increasing premiums by up to 20 percent. She assured the CEO that certain provisions in Obamacare would prevent insurance companies from losing money.
"Chet Burrell, the President and CEO of Care First Blue Cross Blue Shield, wrote to Ms. Jarrett that insurers would likely require Risk Corridor payments on net and that budget neutrality would lead insurers ‘to increase rates substantially (i.e., as much as 20 percent or more . . .),’" the House Oversight and Government Reform report says.
"Ms. Jarrett intervened and wrote to Mr. Burrell that ‘the policy team is aggressively pursuing options.’ After the administration explained how it would implement the Risk Corridor program in April 11, 2014 guidance, Ms. Jarrett wrote to Mr. Burrell that the administration had given insurance companies 80 percent of what they sought," the report says.
That came at a price to taxpayers. "While the Administration’s changes to the Risk Corridor provision protected the profits of insurance companies’ ObamaCare-compliant plans, it was extremely detrimental to taxpayers," the report states. "According to the information obtained by the Committee, the industries’ expectation for the size of the taxpayer bailout has increased by more than a third since October 1, 2013."