Chad’s Morning Brief: Paul Ryan Warns the White House and Lawmakers Concerned About Obamacare

Speaker Paul Ryan has done away with John Boehner's "no shutdown pledge". The Chad Hasty Show airs 8:30-11am on 790AM KFYO.

Shutdown Possible

According to National Review, Speaker Paul Ryan is taking a different approach than former House Speaker John Boehner. Under Speaker Ryan, a government shutdown is possible.

“This is the legislative branch and the power of the purse rests within the legislative branch and we fully expect that we’re going to exercise that power,” Ryan told reporters Tuesday morning. That statement marks a break with Ryan’s predecessor, John Boehner, who developed a habit of pledging not to pass funding bills that would risk a government shutdown by provoking a presidential veto. The new, firmer stance could potentially put Ryan at odds with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who has also sworn to avoid government shutdowns. But it could also help Ryan mollify the conservative backbenchers who have accused GOP leaders of preemptively surrendering to Obama. Democrats are already preparing to accuse conservatives of “demand[ing] a shutdown,” as New York’s Chuck Schumer put it Tuesday. “It won’t be over the numbers,” he said. “It would be over the riders.”
Republicans could make high-profile demands, such as the defunding of Planned Parenthood, or they could pursue any number of lesser known policy goals contained in the GOP appropriations bills Senate Democrats successfully filibustered earlier this year. Some Republican lawmakers hope to bundle those bills into an omnibus spending package in December — just as they did last year when Democrats still controlled the upper chamber.

I like what I'm hearing from Speaker Ryan here. It's not a promise that a shutdown will happen unless the Democrats give-in. But it is a strategy that shows all options are on the table.

Obama-Fail

According to FOX News, lawmakers are concerned about the future of Obamacare after several so-called co-ops have failed.

Congressional lawmakers are raising alarm over the rapid collapse of several so-called ObamaCare "co-ops" -- government-backed alternative health plans -- that are failing, leaving tens of thousands of customers scrambling for coverage, and billions in taxpayer-funded startup loans at risk.

To date, nearly half of the 23 co-ops established under the Affordable Care Act have gone or are expected to go under by the end of the year. The latest to be barred from selling insurance on the official marketplace is in Arizona.

In a letter to the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., pressed the Obama administration for answers on what is being done to address the crisis -- and recoup some of the billions in federal taxpayer loans that have gone to the failing start-ups.

The senators said nearly 870,000 people nationwide have enrolled in the co-ops, and noted they originally were intended to boost competition and provide more affordable options.

"The CO-OPs are not living up to these expectations," they wrote. "To date, eleven ACA CO-Ops -- in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, Nevada, Tennessee, Oregon, South Carolina and Utah -- have collapsed.

"As a result, hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose their health insurance plans and will have to scramble to find new plans, most likely with higher premiums and deductibles."

The co-ops -- or Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans -- were created within ObamaCare as a compromise for liberals unable to secure the creation of a government-run insurance program. Under the plan, taxpayers provided $2.4 billion in loans to set up the nonprofit co-ops as alternatives to major insurers.

The loans were used as start-up money and as reserve funds to meet solvency standards set by state regulators -- but, the alternative insurers have struggled to get off the ground. An inspector general audit released over the summer found that in 2014, only one -- Maine's -- of the 23 made money that year. And it found half of them lagged far behind their enrollment projections.

Over the last several months, many of those co-ops have failed.

Obamacare will continue to fail Americans as the years progress.