The shots Congressional Republicans are taking at the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are starting to hit an unintended target—carriers.

The latest rift between the GOP and industry executives tore open over the party's attack on subsidies to some carriers doing business on the public exchanges. The federal subsidies, known as risk corridors, are designed to offset the risk of participation in the largely unknown public exchange marketplace. While some insurers have profited nicely from exchange business, others haven't done as well as they'd hoped. These companies are in line for the subsidies.

But, as reported in The Hill, the GOP has a special enmity for these subsidies. Perhaps the party's feelings toward them were best summed up by Florida's Sen. Marco Rubio, who's branded them "bailouts."

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Dan Cook

Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.