Every Taxpayer Dollar Needs to be Recovered from Failed Obamacare Exchanges

Word broke last week that one of the largest healthcare providers, United Healthcare, maypull out of the Obamacare exchanges, which means it’s time to revisit what happens to all those federal funds — taxpayer money — invested to get the exchanges off the ground.

After enacting the so-called Affordable Care Act, Congress allocated more than $5.5 billion for the creation of state-based exchanges where Americans could go to sign up for medical insurance. The failure of those exchanges has lead to lawsuits, in which states are attempting to obtain some of the money from the lawsuits. The failure of the state-based exchanges in Maryland and Oregon have gone to court, where both of those states stand to get some of the money despite all of the money spent on those exchanges having come from federal taxpayer money. This has raised questions about whether some states are seeking to cash in on the failure of these exchanges.

The issue has attracted the interest of Congress, where in the House, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has expressed interest in investigating the spending of federal tax dollars on the failed state-based Obamacare exchanges. Additionally, Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and John Barrasso (R-WY) sent a letter to Andrew Slavitt, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), seeking answers to questions about the spending and recovery of federal funds spent on the state-based exchanges.

In Oregon, more than $300 million in federal taxpayer money has been spent on the “Cover Oregon” Obamacare state exchange, and before the governor of the state pulled the plug on it and decided to sue Oracle for its failure, not a single Oregon resident signed up for health insurance through the site. Noridian Healthcare Solutions, the firm that built the state exchange in Maryland, has agreed in settlement to pay $45 million dollar, from federal funds, to both CMS at the federal level and the state of Maryland.

While the state-based exchanges were disastrous failures because this was an effort by the federal and state governments to re-invent something the free market does far more effectively, clearly any money recovered from these failed exchanges should go to CMS and the federal government, which is what paid for the building of these enterprises. Since federal taxpayer money funded these exchanges, any funds recovered should definitely be used to reimburse taxpayers.

The spending of billions in federal money on these failed Obamacare exchanges needs to be fully investigated by Congress, who need to hold federal and state government agencies involved fully accountable for the way the money was spent and the exchanges failed. Congress should demand that all the money be accounted for and as much of it recovered as possible.

This should also be a lesson for legislators, governors and candidates for president, about how government fails disastrously when it attempts to manage and regulate a huge sector of the economy, like healthcare, and do what free market can do so much more efficiently and effectively. The epic failure of Obamacare is a lesson that didn’t need to be learned, since we already know what happens when the federal government attempts to take over such a large part of the economy. Obamacare has proven again that big government doesn’t work, and taxpayers deserve full accountability for this failure.

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