Co-Op Consumer Protection Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his work on this issue.
I think we have to go back in history a little bit on this. ObamaCare was passed into law, signed into law, in 2010. A part of that law, by the way, we had to wait until it passed so we could read it and find out what all was in it established this CO-OP program. The way the law was written, it allowed CMS to go in and put in place the terms of the loans for the CO-OP program.

Now, our colleague from Washington said it was the fault of Congress.

I want to remind you that we did not do the loan terms that have been so onerous. That was done through the rulemaking process by CMS. The way they set this up put the CO-Ops at a disadvantage from the start.
As a result of this, we are seeing these plan failures. This is a mandate that is crumbling under its own weight, the weight of the mandate, coupled with the way CMS has handled the terms of these loans.

Now, the Energy and Commerce Committee, where I serve as vice chair, had released a report earlier this month looking at the failures of these CO-Ops and the investigation that we have had on this. The report reviewed CMS' mismanagement of this program.

Closures of these CO-Ops have left consumers scrambling for health insurance. It gives them fewer options. It provides them with less affordable choices. So the Affordable Care Act becomes unaffordable for millions of Americans. Eight million of that 20 million had insurance from their employer. They were perfectly happy. All of a sudden they are thrown into a program, and now the insured goes out of business.
Fewer choices.

Even in my State of Tennessee, our insurance commissioner, Julie McPeak, testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee about the burdens of CO-Ops and the failures that it has brought about on our State regulators and our communities.

When Tennessee's CO-OP, the Community Health Alliance Mutual Insurance Company, failed approximately 27,000 Tennesseans, they were all forced to find new plans. Only 6 of the original 23 CO-Ops remain.
I will tell my colleagues that this is what you call a false hope. It did not work. It made the situation worse.

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. A recent HHS-OIG report found that the remaining CO- Ops are becoming financially insolvent. They are looking as if they, too, are going to go the way of the others that have failed. Not only does the failure of CO-Ops waste tax dollars, it also leaves individuals in the lurch.

I am pleased that this legislation is coming before us. It implements our committee's recommendation by ensuring that individuals who make a good faith effort to comply with the individual mandate are not further punished as a result of a CO-OP's failure.

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