Among the jobs Mandy Cohen held in the Obama Administration: Director of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. Her bureaucracy oversaw the Obamacare Co-Ops – taxpayer-funded nonprofit insurance companies created by Obamacare to compete with the traditional insurers.
It was a grand little socialist experiment.
And Mandy Cohen hailed the Obamacare Co-Ops in Congressional testimony, declaring ”New Jersey’s CO-OP (Health Republic of New Jersey) was the first new issuer to enter the state’s market in 19 years. In Maine, the CO-OP (Maine Community Health Options) was one of two issuers on the Exchange in 2014; that year, it enrolled 83 percent of individuals who used the Marketplace to sign up for coverage. The CO-OP began offering coverage to the residents of New Hampshire in 2015. Overall, CO-OPs have added both choice and affordability to health insurance coverage options available to consumers”
Within months of Cohen’s words, the New Jersey Co-Op went broke.
The Maine Obamacare Co-Op stopped new business in Maine.
And another pulled out of New Hampshire.
In all, 17 Obamacare Co-Ops going bust soaked taxpayers for $1.8 billion.
If Cohen brings her Washington vision to North Carolina, we might really be in the soup.