ObamaCARE ‘enrollment’ is slowing down to a trickle. The regime only reports that 3.3 million people have ‘enrolled’ in ObamaCARE. No where in the Obama regime’s report does it say how many of these 3.3 million have actually PAID for ObamaCARE. The ‘enrollment’ number is open to being misinterupted. The Obama regimes counts people who ‘enrolled’ in ObamaCARE as simply having a plan selected in their ObamaCARE shopping cart, but not actually paying for anything, or even processing their application. The Obama regime expected 7 million people to be in enrolled by the end of March. Four and a half months into socialized medicine, and they aren’t even at half the goal of number of people enrolled. Now, state ObamaCARE exchanges may be going bankrupt because not enough people are signing up.
The way the Obamacare law was set up, the states were given $4 billion dollars to set up and run the first two years of the exchanges, after that the were supposed to be self-sufficient. The operative word is supposed. IBD is reporting that many of the state exchanges will face financial crises once the federal money runs out.
California, for example, is supposed to be a big ObamaCare success story. But it faces a $78 million shortfall next year and a $34 million deficit in 2016. So the state is setting aside $184 million of its federal grant money to offset those projected deficits.
Executive Director Peter Lee told the state finance commission that Covered California still faces a “long-term sustainability” problem.
Minnesota’s MNSure, meanwhile, is looking at deficits equal to 11% of revenues next year and 13% in 2016.
Washington state next year may have to make severe cutbacks, including stripping out money budgeted for marketing as well as computer and software upgrades.
Hawaii is debating whether to have the state take over its exchange, amid warnings that the “business model will not survive.”
As AP recently reported, Rhode Island and Oregon also face looming budget shortfalls. Oregon is contemplating a 20% budget cut next year after suffering a disastrous rollout in October.
The main cause of this bleak outlook is the dismal ObamaCare enrollment.
To pay for their operations, the state and the federal exchanges charge excise taxes of 2% to 3.5% on plans sold through them.
As enrollment lags, so do revenues. Just three of these 15 nonfederal exchanges claim to have reached their enrollment goals. The rest are far behind.